We’ll get to LeBron and the Cavs in another post shortly. Let’s first give Boston its due.

PJ F’in Brown. It doesn’t quite have the cache of Aaron F’in Boone, but the sentiment is there. Boston’s leading by one with time winding down on the shot clock late in the fourth quarter. The Big Three are choking their way to toward Game Seven infamy. Enter Collier Brown Jr., 38, a man known to basketball fans simply as PJ, or hired muscle, a guy who has played for five NBA teams, but none with distinction in six years.

He was drawn to the Celtics by Ray Allen and Paul Pierce in February during All-Star weekend, eschewing offers from the Hornets and Spurs. Curious about the No. 93? It’s the year he entered the league and the year he married his wife.

With 81 seconds left Sunday, he hit the biggest shot of his career, an awkward-looking jumper from near the right elbow, and saved the aforementioned trio – well, Paul Pierce scored 41, so he would have been off the hook; but he certainly spared KG and Ray Allen – days, weeks, months, hell, years of humiliation. LeBron The Cavs still had a chance to force overtime with a three, but LeBron drove and was bodied-up by Brown – it’s the clutch experience, people! – missed, and then Paul Pierce made two free throws to lock it up.

We’ve taken a few digs at Pierce in the past – and not because he once refused to let us play him in pool – and we thought coming into the season that of The Big Three, he’d be the one to lose a crucial game for Boston because P-squared always seems to force the action. He had 35 Sunday entering the fourth and we still thought he’d find a way to lose the game – he did have three turnovers, including getting picked by LeBron that resulted in a dunk and trimmed Boston’s lead to one – but he didn’t, and Boston survived. What we don’t want to see in the comments, but we’re bracing for: KOBE would have won this one! Pierce is more clutch than LeBron!

Boston’s unimpressive showings against Atlanta and Cleveland plus Detroit being rested and healthy might lead some to believe that the Pistons are the pick in the Eastern Conference Finals. We’ll lean toward the Celtics, even though we wouldn’t be surprised to see them lose game one Tuesday.

Paul Pierce: The Takeover (Dime Mag)
PJ Brown provides blast from past in 4th (Boston Herald)
The Great “Who Woulda Thunk It” Victory (Celtic Blog)