Paul Pierce has been ruled out of Wednesday’s preseason game against the Toronto Raptors, the Celtics preseason finale, and his status for the season opener on Christmas Day is starting to look in doubt.

The team expects Pierce to return to practice Friday in hopes of being available on Sunday, when the Celtics meet the Knicks at Madison Square Garden, but Doc Rivers is concerned. (Boston Globe)

“I’m concerned, not long term, I’m concerned short term,” coach Doc Rivers said. “We have those two games right off the bat and really he’s gone one practice, that’s it.

“It’s a heel bruise, he went real hard yesterday and it just real got real sore so we just want him to rest. The problem with that is it will be a lot of rest and he may be ready but with no play, that’s scary. It wasn’t really a test – he went out and did some one on one work with some of the guys and heel got extremely sore.”

Since training camp started, Kevin Garnett got x-rays on his thumb (they were negative, thank God), Rajon Rondo missed a couple practices with an ankle injury, Jeff Green failed a physical and doctors determined he needs season-ending surgery to repair an aneurysm in his heart, Pierce injured his heel and might miss the season opener against the New York Knicks, and Jermaine O’Neal, against all odds, has remained healthy. Out of Boston’s projected starters, only O’Neal and Ray Allen have escaped injury during training camp. The former will assuredly injure himself within a matter of weeks (or days, or perhaps seconds), and the latter is a cyborg designed specifically to withstand three times the rigors of Ivan Drago’s workout routine.

I’m telling you, it’s the goddamn Curse of James Posey. Ever since losing Posey to free agency in the summer of 2008, the C’s have had Odenian injury luck. Okay, not quite Odenian, but still. Injuries have followed these Celtics like a menacing shadow.

Speaking of Posey, I don’t think he’s an impact player anymore. He hasn’t really been one since he left the Celtics. But if Pierce misses any regular season time and we are forced to watch Sasha Pavlovic soak up minutes, acquiring Posey will start to look a lot more attractive.