Paul Pierce was so banged up this year he didn’t think he’d make it through the season.  (Dan Duggan, Boston Herald)

Paul Pierce missed 11 games during the regular season while dealing with a number of physical ailments. The Celtics forward said he’s currently feeling as good as he has since the beginning of the season, but the injuries took a toll.

“The things I went through were very difficult – just not knowing if my body was going to make it to the end of the season, truthfully,’ Pierce said. ‘Just after the knee, the foot, the hand, a couple of other injuries that didn’t even get mentioned to you guys because there were so many other things going on, I didn’t think I’d make it through the season – truthfully. I’m glad I was able to work through it, get back to 100 percent and things are going the way they’re going right now.”

I knew he was banged up, but I never thought it was THAT bad.  Doc Rivers has to get a lot of credit for managing his team so well, getting them healthy for the playoffs.  Doc said he had his team take the foot off the metal the last part of the season.  (WEEI)

It was a conscious effort the last month, but before that we were struggling, too, guys. We were struggling from basically the day after Christmas. That had a lot to do with injuries and then when everybody got returned back, we just couldn’t find our rhythm.

When we came into the last month of the season, you could look at the records and could see we were not going to catch Cleveland and were not going to catch Orlando. We may be able to hold on to the No. 3 seed, but if we do that then were going to use guys. The bottom line is, we need help, and from that point on, that’s how we played out the season. You knew one thing: Unhealthy, we were not going to win. I didn’t know if healthy if we would win or not, I just knew it would give us a chance.

Paul Pierce can partially thank Doc for letting him take it easy and get ready for the playoffs.