A weekend to play nice
"Everybody on the East side I pretty much get along with," Rondo said. "None of them play my position, so I don't really have any beef with the Miami guys or nobody in the Eastern Conference, really. There's two point guards, right? Me and [Chicago's] Derrick [Rose]? I don't have any beef with him."
Even Ray Allen, the epitome of cool and collected, admitted there's tension.
"I don't think you truly relax and say, 'Hey, we're best buddies now because we're playing on the All-Star team,'" Allen said. "A couple years ago, we won the All-Star Game in '08, and Rasheed [Wallace, then with Detroit] said, 'Thank you, for helping me make this extra money, but now we hate you guys again.'
"There's an honest camaraderie amongst all the players, but there is a lot of hatred that exists," Allen said. "You live in the community that you live in. Yeah, we may have played AAU together and went to college, but once the lines divide, you live in one city that hates another city. Like Boston and New York or now Boston and Orlando. You breathe what the fans feel, you know? ... Rashard Lewis told me one time, after we beat [Orlando] in the playoffs last year, he was like, 'Man, I hope I never see green ever again in my life.' And one day he could end up playing here, but for the time being, you're [immersed] with the playoff fever, that you just start to hate a certain team."
Beyond the game -- and everyone being on their best behavior -- Pierce stressed that the ultimate goal of All-Star weekend is to relax and savor the experience.
"I think it's a tremendous opportunity," Pierce said. "It's always a privilege when you make an All-Star Game and are recognized as one of the best players in the world. I enjoy every minute of it. It's going to be great to be able to spend it with my teammates. We all have something planned. We are going to go out together and have dinner, maybe watch a show or something. It's good. I am going to enjoy these moments, especially with my career winding down. You don't get too many moments like this."
