So why is LeBron James the best player in the NBA? Here is the fastest breakdown of why he's the best. It's all of this wrapped into one. These numbers and results are produced by his all around game and skills, don't look at this as just "stats". -For starters, LeBron is the best athlete in the NBA today! 19 years old: 21ppg 5.5reb 6ast 1.5stl .7blk 3.5to 41.7%fg 20 years old: 27ppg 7.4reb 7.2ast 2.2stl .7blk 3.3to 47.2%fg 21 years old: 31.5ppg 7.0reb 6.6ast 1.6stl .8blk 3.3to 48%fg 22 years old: 27.3ppg 6.7reb 6.0ast 1.6stl .7blk 3.2to 47.6%fg 23 years old: 30ppg 7.9reb 7.2ast 1.8stl 1.1blk 3.4to 48.4%fg -22 years old, 48 points in a huge crucial game vs the Detroit Pistons(3 years removed from a championship) in the playoffs, led a mediocre team to the finals. -23 years old, 45 points in a huge crucial playoff game vs the Boston Celtics, game 7. -He also already has 1 scoring title Paul Pierce hit a shot. Then LeBron James answered. Pierce hit another and so did James. It was like that all game long, two of the NBA's best trying to carry their teams to the next round. Pierce and the Boston Celtics succeeded, beating the Cleveland Cavaliers 97-92 on Sunday. Twenty years earlier there was another thrilling shootout in another seventh game of the Eastern Conference semifinals in Boston -- Larry Bird vs. Dominique Wilkins. And the result was the same: a narrow Celtics victory that sent them to the conference finals against Detroit. Pierce scored 41 points, James had 45 and Boston remained unbeaten in the playoffs at home, where the first two games against the Pistons will be played Tuesday and Thursday night. "It is a great feeling," Pierce said. "We knew this was going to be a tough, tough series." In a seven-game series in which the road team never won, the Celtics had many green-clad fans on their side. Lucky the Mascot held up a sign reading, "ROCK THE GARDEN!" and the crowd roared. Pierce got the loudest ovation when he was introduced with his nickname, "The Truth." And when the game started, one fan bellowed, "Not today, LeBron!" It wasn't Wilkins' day on May 22, 1988, even though he outscored Bird in Boston's 118-116 win over Atlanta at the old Boston Garden. Wilkins finished with 47 points, with 16 in the fourth quarter, and Bird had 34, with 20 in the final period. James has seen plenty of highlights of that mano-a-mano tussle. "We both tried to will our team to victory and, just like Dominique Wilkins, I ended up on the short end and the Celtics won again," he said. "I think the second round of the postseason, Game 7, these fans will finally have an opportunity to forget a little bit about what Larry Bird and Dominique Wilkins did and remember what Paul and LeBron did. "This will go down in history." Pierce hit 13 of 23 shots and James went 14-for-29. Celtics executive vice president Danny Ainge, who played in that 1988 game, called Sunday's shootout "an epic battle." "I had it going, LeBron had it going and we just didn't let up," Pierce said. "Neither one of us wanted our teams to lose." "The ghost of Red just looking over us," Pierce said. "I think he kind of tapped it in the right direction. It sort of put a smile on my face." But now they're unbeaten in the 29 series in which they've led 3-2. "Today it was basically, 'Get the ball to Paul Pierce and get the hell out of the way,'" Kevin Garnett said. Garnett added 13 points and P.J. Brown came off Boston's bench to score 10 and grab key rebounds. "It's emotional," Garnett said. "We will enjoy this, but as we advance it does get a little more difficult." Delonte West was the only other Cleveland scorer in double figures with 15. "We fight hard in every game, come out and leave it out on the floor," West said. "We expected this type of effort out of ourselves, competing until there's no zeros on the clock. It just hurts that we just go home now. That's all." The Celtics led 50-40 at halftime, but the Cavaliers cut that to 52-49. It was 61-58 before Boston stretched its margin to 67-58 by scoring the next six points. He stayed in the game for all but the last 4.2 seconds of the half, then left for treatment of a bruised left thigh but played most of the second half. With smoke from pregame pyrotechnics still rising toward the rafters where Boston's 16 championship banners hang, the Celtics got off to a strong start. They rolled to a 16-4 lead -- with Pierce scoring nine -- but the Cavaliers closed it to 29-23 with 7:20 left in the second quarter. That's when James left the game for the first time, replaced by Pavlovic, and the Celtics got the next five points before James returned less than 1 1/2 minutes later. "I have always been a winner, and I am a winner," he said. "You are just disappointed that the season is over.