AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - Doubts, there were always doubts.
Could the guys with the big reps and the big paychecks play together? Was the supporting cast capable of being supportive enough? Could they win on the road? Could they win on the West Coast? A 66-16 record answered all those queries.
Then came the playoffs.
There was the road thing. Seven games against the eighth seed? Bad. More road struggles against Cleveland. Two seven-game series in a row. Bad. Were they really championship-worthy?
Game 3 in Detroit. There was no choice. They had lost Game 2, so they had to win a game here, and they did. But two? Could they win another? Could they close the deal without risking another seventh game?
There are no more questions. The Celtics have closed the deal. They have not only won an elimination game in the Eastern Conference finals, they have done so with a monster comeback, a fourth-quarter performance that will go down in Celtics history. They have won a big playoff game on the road and they have won it in a style that the Russells, Cousys, Havliceks, and Birds could be proud of.
"I could write a long book about my emotions right now," said Paul Pierce, who scored 12 of his 27 points in the fourth quarter as the Celtics won the Eastern Conference championship for the 20th time with an 89-81 victory over the Detroit Pistons.
So it will be the Celtics vs. the Lakers. That has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?
Trailing by 10 points (70-60) a minute and a half into the fourth quarter after being hit with a 22-6 Detroit run, the Celtics reached down for that certain something and began acting like a championship team at both ends of the floor. As usual, the average guy will remember the offense, whether it was the bookend baskets by Rajon Rondo on a 28-9 run, the go-ahead, spinning 3-point play by Pierce, or the big buckets by Kevin Garnett, who shook off a 2-for-10 first half to come up very big in the deciding fourth quarter.
But you can bet the coaches will be rhapsodizing over a Boston defense that held the Pistons to 13 fourth-quarter points. You can bet they'll be discussing the play of Kendrick Perkins, Garnett, and, most of all, James Posey, who seemed to be guarding five guys at once, and who had a huge steal in the backcourt from a napping Tayshaun Prince at a point when the Pistons were down only 4 at 83-79.
Pure and simple, the only people in the building who thought the Celtics were going to win this game after a 6-point third-quarter lead (54-48) turned into a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit (70-60) were them. The last seven minutes of the third quarter were beyond ugly from a Boston viewpoint. Detroit appeared to have gained control of the game. A third consecutive seventh game loomed.
