Suddenly for Pierce, it was all about defense. With Garnett barking at everyone all day and new defensive coordinator Tom Thibodeau setting a high defensive standard, Pierce was going around making sure everyone was on point. “He started holding everyone accountable — like, everybody accountable — and he became a big-time leader on the defensive end of the floor,” longtime teammate Brian Scalabrine says. “He called guys out who would forget their assignments, and we had a culture that you had to know your assignments. You could not — it wasn’t a part of our culture for us to forget defensive assignments. That was a big part of what we did.”
