Paul Pierce came Boston's rescue in the third quarter of Game One of the NBA Finals on Thursday night despite a sprained knee, according to The Providence Journal.

"We saw him being carried off, and we didn't know what the situation was," Kevin Garnett said. "We kept asking, was he all right. Doc was trying to get us back to the huddle. One thing we know about P is he's very tough, and we've seen him play through numerous injuries throughout the season."

While on defense he fell to the ground, clutching his knee. He needed to be carried back to the locker room with what looked like a serious knee injury. However, just a few minutes later he came bouncing out onto the court with a sleeve on the injured knee.

"Well, when I first fell to the ground I heard a pop in my knee, and all I felt was pain when I grabbed it," Pierce said. "And at that point I thought it was just, I thought I tore something. That's the way I felt at the time. Usually when I go down, I'm getting right back up, but it was an instance where I turned my knee, and it popped, [I] heard it pop, and I was just in pain where I just couldn't move."

"Once I got to the back, I felt on it, then I stood on my two feet and just tried to see where the pain was at. It was on the inside of my knee. I tried to put weight on it, wasn't bad. I tried to lateral, a little soreness. Once I felt I could put weight on it, I was like, I had to get back out there to help my ballclub," Pierce added.

"That was all that was going through my mind, just being a part of it. I just wanted to get back out there."