Pierce makes his bones as Celtics' closer

Not all Eastern Conference Finals teams are created equal. Paul Pierce is the unquestioned alpha dog of this current crew of Boston Celtics, and he cemented his legacy as one of the team's legends with a performance worthy of Larry Bird, Bill Russell, John Havlicek and all the rest on Sunday.
Pierce doesn't have a championship ring. He's never even played in The Finals. But he brought Boston one step closer to its NBA-best 17th championship with a game for the ages on Sunday against Cleveland.
Not even LeBron James could better The Captain on this day. James' game-high 45 points couldn't overcome Pierce and his own 41-point explosion, sending Boston on to a date with Detroit thanks to a 97-92 win in Game 7 at the TD Banknorth Garden.
Pierce and James traded jump shots and drives to the hoop all day, a match-up that woke up the echoes of another Game 7 in Celtics' folklore. Pierce-James was The Duel, Part II, a worthy sequel to The Duel in which Larry Bird and Dominique Wilkins battled to the final minute in Game 7 of the 1988 Eastern Conference semis.
The similarities between the two events are striking, and it goes deeper than two great players coming up with the goods on center stage. Bird and Pierce could be cast as the aging warriors, both trying to snatch one last shot at glory. Bird's Celtics never won another title after their 1986 championship and didn't make The Finals after '87, but his victory over Wilkins in '88 provided another enduring memory to his brilliant career. Wilkins was the flashier of the two, The Human Highlight Reel, an athlete and scorer supreme. His steady stream of jumpers and dunks and the energy radiating from his young legs makes James and his clear physical dominance an easy comparison to Wilkins at that time.
Kevin Garnett came to Boston this season and was named the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year. Ray Allen added another All-Star to the Celtics line-up, the first of two blockbuster trades that Danny Ainge made to revitalize the franchise. With all of that said, Pierce showed on Sunday that this is His Team. He came out aggressively in the first quarter, looking for his shot, fighting his way to the basket and getting to the foul line at will. His 26 first-half points were a warning shot to the Cavaliers and his ability to match James shot for shot in the third quarter allowed Boston to keep its tentative lead.
This Celtics team is much different from the one that made a shocking run to the Eastern finals in 2002. Pierce and Antoine Walker were a two-man show with very little supporting cast, a defensive-minded coach in Jim O'Brien and the belief that no 3-pointer was a bad one to take. This current group won 66 games thanks to its defensive intensity and contributions from all three of its stars, but any club that wants to go deep into the playoffs needs a go-to-guy down the stretch. Pierce proved on Sunday that he is still that man, maybe even more now than he was with Walker gunning 3s from all angles and playing in a slow-down offense that made for some ugly, if effective, basketball. Garnett has been a complimentary piece his whole career, a player who doesn't want to take the big shot if someone else has a better look. Fine. That's who he is. Don't ask him to do more. Allen is a jump shooter who needs the offense run for him. He can't create his own shot by penetrating and getting into the lane. Fine. That's who he is. Don't ask him to do more.
Besides, Pierce might just be the chosen one on this team. His 10-for-11 night at the line included two free throws inside the final minute and a sign from above that Red Auerbach and the leprechaun that lived in the rafters of the real Boston Garden are hard at work somewhere on the Celtics' behalf. Pierce's first shot hit the back right part of the rim and took a bounce straight up in the air before dropping into the basket, a shot that Pierce couldn't make once in 1,000 tries in practice even if he was trying to do so. The suggestion that some greater force could be at work wasn't too much of a stretch. The true indicator would be success against the Pistons. And Pierce will have the final say on whether or not Boston advances.