So Al Horford, after hitting a big jumper late in the Hawks-Celtics game last night, threw some words at Paul Pierce, who was on the floor, on his way back on defense. It was straight taunting, no question, and Horford should have been T'd up. Can the NBA impose retroactive T's? Maybe fine him? I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen. It really was a textbook case.

However, what came after was the really crazy part: Paul Pierce started walking back up the court toward Horford. He didn't look like he was talking, but right around midcourt, Brian Scalabrine caught up with him and started to pull him back to the Celtics bench (they had called a timeout). Pierce then decided to throw up one of these:



Now, wait just a minute. Was that one of these? In particular, the piru blood sign? (See here for more on the pirus.) There is some speculation on some message boards that this was in fact a blood sign. See also.

So, um, bets on whether Al Horford lives to see his sophomore slump?