BOSTON — In this house of horrors, where his championship dreams died so many times, where his career arc was indelibly dented, where he shed his Cleveland Cavaliers jersey for the final time, LeBron James stared into the abyss and scoffed at the darkness.

The dream would not end again on the TD Garden’s parquet, not this spring, not without James authoring one of the most brilliant performances in his brilliant career.
Facing elimination and a second straight year without bringing a title to South Beach, James summoned the dominant scorer within Thursday night, putting 45 points on the board in a 98-79 Miami Heat victory over the Boston Celtics, tying the Eastern Conference finals at 3-3.
The championship will be decided Saturday night in Miami. The winner will meet the Thunder in the finals, which begin on Tuesday in Oklahoma City.
This series has tilted hard in every direction — from the Heat winning the first two games to the Celtics winning the next three — with two overtimes mixed in and historic performances from Rajon Rondo and now James.
For 45 minutes — all but the last three minutes — James controlled the game, scoring from seemingly every floorboard while hitting 19 of 26 shots, accounting for more than half of his team’s field goals. He also finished with 15 rebounds and 5 assists, powering a Heat offense that had few other options on this night.
Dwyane Wade scored 17 points but again struggled with his accuracy, going 6 for 17 from the field. No other Miami player scored in double digits.
Rondo led Boston with 21 points and 10 assists but was the only Celtics star to play like one. Paul Pierce missed 14 of his 18 attempts and finished with just 9 points.
Kevin Garnett, whose inside play was a key to the Celtics’ revival in this series, had just 12 points while going 6 for 14. Ray Allen had 10 points.
“He was absolutely fearless tonight,” Miami Coach Erik Spoelstra said. “And it was contagious. The way he approached the last 48 hours, and not only LeBron, but everybody else. It wasn’t the end of the world. Nobody likes getting dirt thrown on your face before you’re even dead.”
As a general rule, James shuns the notion that he would ever try to take over a game. He views himself as more playmaker than scorer, more Magic than Michael. Yet his words conveyed a different mindset as he contemplated this elimination game.
“I’m looking forward to it probably more than anyone on the team,” he said Wednesday. “I’m going to lead these guys in the right direction. I put a lot on myself, like I do any game.”
Twice in the last four years, the Pierce-Garnett-Allen Celtics had ruined James’ postseason — both times on the parquet. They knocked out his Cavaliers in 2008 and again in 2010 — the series that ended James’s Cleveland career. He signed with the Heat two months later to form his own Big 3 with Wade and Chris Bosh to finally vanquish his playoff demons.
James hit 17 of 22 shots over the first three quarters as the Heat built a 17-point lead. He had 41 points — more than half of Miami’s total — and 10 rebounds before the fourth began. He did not sit for a single minute, until the Heat had a 22-point lead with 3 minutes 11 seconds left to play.
Bosh, playing his second game since returning from an abdominal strain, logged 28 minutes, finishing with 7 points and 6 rebounds off the bench.
No matter the outcome, James had the most at stake, his reputation seemingly riding on every shot. So he took a lot of them.
James attacked from the opening tip, drove through the heart of Boston’s defense for a pair of dunks, hit a series of tough fadeaways and scored 30 of Miami’s 55 points in the first half. He missed only two shots in 14 attempts and outshined Rondo, who had 19 points in the half.
The Heat had a 13-point advantage at halftime, after leading by as many as 15. It hardly mattered that Wade was 1 for 6, or that no other Miami player hit more than two field goals.
James was everything for the Heat. He handled the ball on nearly every possession, and frustrated every defender sent at him.
On consecutive possessions, James pump-faked Pierce, then Rondo into the air, drawing fouls on both. The foul was Pierce’s third and forced him to the bench for the final 5:40 of the half. When the Celtics got within 8 points, James extended it with a flying putback dunk. When the lead dipped to 9, James hit a difficult 18-foot fadeaway.
Bosh played 15 minutes in the half, one more than he played in Game 5. After watching Bosh’s feisty return on Tuesday, Spoelstra said he was “much more comfortable” with using him in a prominent role. But he chose to start Udonis Haslem anyway, saying that Bosh might not be ready for “his normal load.”
Tensions flared early, as Allen and Mario Chalmers tangled in the paint, exchanged words and bumped chests. Chalmers drew a technical foul, his third of the series. Chalmers later sent Rondo sprawling to the court in transition. Rondo calmly flipped over and did two knuckle pushups — six fewer than Garnett did in Game 3.
By tipoff, the Heat had already absorbed two days of anticipatory eulogies, and a thousand theories on what had gone wrong.
“We don’t listen to the noise, because it comes with the territory,” Wade said Wednesday. “Only way to shut the noise up is to win. And if you don’t win, it’s going to be there. That’s a part of life. If you do win, it’s a lot quieter.”
For two more days, at least, the noise will be muffled.
“That was a good response to the last 48 hours,” Spoelstra said. “We have a very stubborn, tough-minded group.”
REBOUNDS
With 10 assists, Rajon Rondo climbed to third on the Celtics’ all-time playoff assist list, passing John Havlicek (825). Rondo has 831 assists, trailing only Larry Bird (1,062) and Bob Cousy (937). He is 17th on the N.B.A.’s all-time postseason list.