ATLANTA -- There was Paul Pierce running down the court with Avery Bradley on his right and a two-point lead in his back pocket. Pierce had done everything humanly possible to get the Celtics that lead, and with four minutes remaining he had his team in position to pull off a remarkable comeback.

Ray Allen was on the bench in his well-appointed suit, his ankle refusing to cooperate with his postseason plans. Rajon Rondo was somewhere in the back watching his team while serving a one-game suspension. Minus half of the C's unbreakable core four, Pierce took 26 shots and half as many free throws. He scored 36 points, grabbed 14 rebounds and was on the floor for all but four minutes of the kind of blood and guts game that has been his calling card.

In that instant, the ball -- and possibly the entire series -- was in Pierce’s hands, where it belonged. Pierce embraces those moments and lives to call them his own. Each one adds to his legacy that he’s built in Boston, but Pierce is also forever cognizant of those around him and as he read the situation, he did the right thing.

He pushed it ahead to Bradley, the 21-year-old wunderkind who couldn’t even get on the floor in the playoffs last season. Bradley streaked down the wing, ready to unleash lord knows what on the Hawks, but then Bradley did the right thing, as well. He slowed down for just a second -- long enough to make the defender commit -- and dished it back to Pierce for an easy jam.

After an Atlanta miss, Pierce lined up a 3-pointer and buried it, sealing an improbable 87-80 victory that sends the Celtics back to Boston with a split series. Pierce was magnificent -- “a monster,” as Doc Rivers described him later. The much-maligned bench performed above and beyond all expectation as forgotten role players like Marquis Daniels and Ryan Hollins made major contributions.

Then there was Bradley. He didn’t replace Rondo -- Pierce ran much of the show offensively -- but he did slide over to his position and took on all the defensive responsibilities of the point guard. The stat sheet doesn’t do him justice. Bradley played 42 minutes and took only eight shots. He had just three assists, but more importantly, he had only one turnover.

“Rondo rubs off on me a little bit,” Bradley said. “It comes from Paul and those guys. They help me out a lot. They help me build my confidence. They told me, ‘Don’t rush. Just play your game.’ ”

It took him exactly one game to get his playoff feet under him. Every young player understands that the postseason is different, but it takes the experience to know why that’s the case. For Bradley, the awakening came in the first game when he learned that in the playoffs everyone plays as hard as he does in the regular season. What makes Bradley special, along with his obvious physical gifts, is that he learns his lesson quickly.

“It’s like, weird,” Bradley said. “Even during the regular season, my intensity level is always high. I just need to settle down a little bit more. I feel like I’m only going to keep improving, especially with the group of guys I’m playing with.”

Bradley makes plays that leave his veteran teammates shaking their heads, like his three blocks or his key pull-up jumper in transition. He has these moments that are as breathtaking as they are unexpected. With the exception of Rondo, he is the one player on the Celtics who compels you to watch because you never know when those moments are going to occur. 

“I want you to understand something,” Keyon Dooling said in a quiet moment later. “He has star potential.”

What really stood out, however, was Bradley's all-around game. He didn’t press or try to assert himself offensively, as he did in Game 1. Instead, he let the game happen.

“Avery did a phenomenal job,” Dooling said. “To be able to play two positions and run the show, he played a real nice floor game. He understood that we wanted to search and seek for Paul, so he wasn’t as aggressive with the ball as he usually is. Down the stretch he made a key pull-up. Defensively, he was all over the place.”

Bradley’s primary job was keeping Jeff Teague in check. The Hawks’ young guard got the better of Bradley in the first half with 12 points on 5-for-10 shooting. That needed to change.

“I knew that I needed to stop Teague a little bit more,” Bradley said. “He got going and so I wanted to take that challenge and show my teammates, pick up my defensive intensity, and they had my back.” 

Essentially, Bradley was giving Teague too much space, so he made the adjustment.

“I was sagging off,” he said. “I needed to get him in more and make him go where I wanted him to go.”

It’s a wondrous thing to watch a defensive player control the action in front of him and dictate the flow of the game. In the second half, Teague made just 1-of-8 shots and was effectively neutralized. So were the Hawks, who made just 11-of-40 shots in the second half and shot just 28 percent. 

“I thought Avery was solid,” Kevin Garnett said. “The second half he was a lot better on Teague. As the game went on, we kept fueling him with confidence. He wasn’t shooting the ball that great, he went to the free throw line, got a rhythm. All the things that you need when you’re struggling a little bit. I thought he played a great all-around game.”

This was, as they say, a total team effort. Rivers ran 10 players out on the court, extending the rotation well beyond his preferred seven or eight. Dooling broke a long 0-for stretch from behind the arc with two huge 3-pointers. Garnett played 40 minutes and grabbed 12 rebounds, helping the Celtics actually win the battle on the boards. Pierce was Pierce -- the quintessential big-game player.

But it shouldn’t be forgotten that a 21-year-old undersized shooting guard filled in for one of the game’s great point guards and played the way Bradley played.