Paul Pierce and the Boston Celtics are one step closer to making it back to the NBA Finals.

No. 34 had 13 points, five rebounds and three assists in 29 minutes of action as the Celtics claimed a 94-85 Game 6 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday night.

The victory won the series 4 games to 2 for Boston and knocked the heavily favored Cavaliers and their "King," LeBron James, out of the playoffs in the second round.

Taking out the team with the best record during the regular season allowed The Captain to let out a slight sigh of relief at the postgame press conference. But the sigh wasn't to be misinterpreted:

"I was more worried about how we were going to get the job done," Paul said, admitting that he didn't even talk to James after the game because he was overtaken with a rush of excitement for he and his teammates in victory. "I didn't have a chance to say anything, I was just so excited from the win I just went right back to the locker room. Sorry for my professionalism, I didn't shake anybody's hand, but you know I didn't mean it that way."

The showdown between The Truth and the King was the most hotly contested one-on-one of the series, but it wasn't the first time the two had gone mano y mano in an epic battle.

Two years ago, Paul and LeBron engaged in back-and-forth offensive slugfest, but the matchup was much different this time. Paul was relied on more for his defense on James, who put up strong offensive but was limited at times and turned the ball over 27 times in the series. The Boston Globe noted the difference in gameplans.

"This time around, James (27 points, 19 rebounds, 10 assists) remained the focal point of the Cavaliers, but the Celtics' fate didn't rest on Pierce's back. Kevin Garnett (22 points) and Rajon Rondo (21) were the leading scorers for the Celtics in the Game 6 clincher, while Pierce added 13 points, 8 in the third quarter."

Paul helped to spread the ball and the scoring around more this season, yet the result was the same as it was in 2008 — a C's series win. For Paul, that was all that mattered. He credited the victory to the ability of his teammates to work together, telling the Boston Globe:

"That's what makes us so strong, when you do your scouting report on us you have to worry about four, five, six different guys night in and night out,'' Pierce said. "I think with us you can't just key in on one guy. You can say I'm our leading scorer, but you got four or five other guys that could be our leading scorer and it's not by much. I'm only our leading scorer by like 2 points from the second-leading scorer, 3 points from the third-leading scorer, so it can happen from anybody on any given night. That's what makes us so great, when we move the ball and we have so many people we can rely on.''

The Truth noted in his press conference that, with so many weapons and favorable matchups, spreading the ball around was crucial to Boston's success this series.

"That's the way we want to play," No. 34 said after letting out another long sigh, this one accompanied by a smile. "We want to get the ball to Kevin. We feel like he had a matchup. We want to run a lot of pick and rolls with Rondo. I think we just tried to exploit matchups this series. We saw a matchup we could exploit with Kevin and Antwan Jamison, we felt like we could go to night in and night out and that's what we wanted to exploit. He carried us a lot of this series, he and Rondo."

However, despite all the hoopla surrounding Boston's upset over Cleveland, The Captain said there will be no celebration just yet.

"I'm really not that proud, truthfully, because our goal was to win a championship. We didn't say we wanted to come into this year and beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in the playoffs. Our goal is a championship. We can be excited for one night, winning the game, winning the series. But I don't look at it as this made our season.

"The only thing that's going to make our season is winning a championship. We have those type of goals around here. You look at some teams, they get moral victories for hanging around in a series or winning one series. Not here in Boston. We strive and we get excited here when we put that banner up."

NEXT UP
There's not much rest on the menu for Paul and the C's, who travel to Orlando to face Dwight Howard and the Magic in the Eastern Conference Finals beginning Sunday.

Last season the Celtics tangled with the eventual Eastern Conference Champion Magic for seven games in the conference semifinals before dropping Game 7 and ceding their title. Paul averaged 18.9 points, 4.7 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game in the series.

Now No. 34 and the Celtics have a chance to take their Eastern Conference throne back from the team that took it from them and return to the NBA Finals for the second time in three years.

Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals tips off on Sunday at 3:30 p.m. EST and the game can be seen on ABC.

RELATED STORIES
Pierce is no longer team's only weapon (Boston Globe, May 14, 2010)
http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/celtics/articles/2010/05/14/pier...
C's you later, Cavs (Boston Herald, May 14, 2010)
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Celtics team up to send LeBron James, Cavs packing (Boston Herald, May 14, 2010)
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Magic on a historic roll (ESPN.com, May 14, 2010)
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It all came together for Celtics (ESPN.com, May 14, 2010)
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