Paul Pierce and LeBron James‘ rivalry goes back to the year in which James was drafted. In 2003-04, LeBron was the new kid on the block with a massive spotlight on him as a rookie, and Pierce had been in the league since 1998. The Celtics and Cavaliers, being in the same conference (Eastern), clashed often in the regular season and the playoffs.
Going into the 2025 NBA playoffs, Pierce, now an analyst for FOX Sports, spoke to Skip Bayless about his clashes with LeBron in the playoffs. Skip proclaimed that Pierce was one of the best defenders to ever guard LeBron. ‘The Truth’ was one of the few players in NBA history who has had a winning record in all regular-season games against LeBron James (21-18).
However, in the playoffs, LeBron still dominated that match-up with 17 games to Pierce’s 13 wins. Needless to say, Pierce played James long enough to be able to identify some of the crucial patterns in his behavior that he could use against him.
When Skip asked Pierce if he ever tried to get in LeBron’s head, he hinted at one of the few weaknesses LeBron James is known to have had:
“I would always talk to LeBron. I would say little things to him, jab at him. Especially when he got to the free throw line, I would always talk to him because he would miss crucial free throws”, he said.
“How Are You Going To Call This 19-Year-Old Kid A King?”- Paul Pierce On His First Time Seeing LeBron James
At the beginning of this discussion with Skip Bayless about Pierce’s own experience with LeBron, Pierce recalled the first time he ever heard of James. It was back when LeBron was in high school and had already gained tremendous attention from the NBA world, including players like Antoine Walker. Pierce remembered being intrigued by what the hype around LeBron was all about.
“It’s crazy! The first time I heard about this kid, he was in high school. Remember, everybody was going to watch his games? I remember Antoine Walker going to watch his game, and I’m like, ‘Man, who is this kid?’ and they was like he can play in the All-Star game right now, like out of high school. And I was like, ‘Really? He that good?’ So when he was drafted, I was like, I’m going to test him from day 1. And from Day 1, I was going at him. Like, how are you going to call a 19-year-old kid a king? Like what has he done? And we played in the same position. I always relished in challenging myself while playing against him.”
In all games played between LeBron James and Paul Pierce, LeBron has a slight advantage in their all-time record (35-34 in 69 games played). LeBron has averaged 29.2 points, 7.4 rebounds, 6 assists, and 1.8 steals per game, whereas Pierce averaged 18.8 points, 5.3 rebounds, 3.4 assists, and 1.0 steals per game.
Therefore, it seems a bit farfetched for Skip to say that he’s the best to guard LeBron when he averaged over 29 points per game in all their games they played against each other.
