"He didn't have to be scolded. He also didn't have to be told the officials were wrong.

By the time Paul Pierce finally talked to the media before yesterday's practice at the University of Miami, he already had taken himself to task for getting ejected in the fourth quarter of the Celtics' Game 1 loss to the Heat on Sunday night.

He also remained resolute in the insistence that he didn't deserve to get tossed. But most of all, Pierce regretted hurting his team.

"I was more disappointed in how it affected my team. That's what I said when I went to the locker room," Pierce said. "If you put yourself in a situation you can control and it hurts your team, that's what I was upset about. I'm too important for this team to be caught in those situations."

And yet he couldn't leave it at that. Pierce insisted that his incendiary reactions to hard fouls from James Jones and Dwyane Wade did not warrant two technical fouls and the subsequent ejection.

"The referees called what they saw," he said. "I thought they overreacted. I thought I was fouled excessively on both plays, to be honest. It should have been a flagrant on both the players.

"I was surprised at being kicked out. I didn't think what I did warranted an ejection, but you do what you have to do."

And so Pierce meted out his own form of expletive-laden justice. He also came close to bumping Jones' face with his nose — a semi-lunge that general manager Danny Ainge yesterday called "an Eskimo kiss.""