LeBron James: What 45-Point Game vs. Celtics Means for Heat Star's Legacy

LeBron James' 45-point night in the Miami Heat's 98-79 Game 6 victory over the Boston Celtics silenced his critics...for now.

James scored 45 points, pulled down 15 boards and dished out five dimes in a performance for the ages that helped his team live to fight another day in these 2012 NBA playoffs.

But this was about much more than just saving the Heat from elimination. It was about more than saving Erik Spoelstra's job. It was about more than preserving the Heat as a whole, as there undoubtedly would have been "Break up the Heat! We can't win with this team!" cries in the South Beach area.

This show that LeBron put on for us was about his legacy. It was about laying an essential, metaphorical brick on his road to the NBA Hall of Fame. For years, the basketball community has dissected everything James does, putting his every move under a microscope—no matter how unrelated to basketball. 

Whether it be his hairline, his pregame reading of The Hunger Games, or his family life, LeBron James can't catch a break. This figurative crucifixion of LeBron James by every basketball fan in the country outside of South Florida will be coming to an end soon.

We've always known he is the greatest physical specimen in the NBA. We've known of his talents, his speed and his leaping ability, but what we haven't known is whether or not he can come up in the clutch on the biggest stage in all of basketball. His past failures in the postseason have led to a mass vilification, which was sometimes undeserved.

But that is all changing now. Now that he came up huge in a pressure situation for the Heat in an elimination game—on the road at the TD Garden, where the Heat seldom emerge victorious—he has turned the sinking ship that was his legacy around.

He looked like a three-time MVP on the court tonight, when he didn't in Game 5 despite his 30-point outing. James was a stone-cold killer on the floor when nobody else on his team could get anything done. Basketball purists will cringe at this next statement, but this was a Michael Jordan-esque performance from King James.

Never before have we seen LeBron walk off the court after a playoff game and leave his doubters with such little ammunition. There isn't one negative thing that can be said about his Game 6 performance. Call it "Hero Ball," call it whatever you want, but LeBron James came up huge in a situation when the Miami Heat had their backs against the wall, shooting 19-of-26 on a night when the rest of his teammates hit 18 shots combined.

This is what the media has torn him apart for not doing. He's never had that one signature performance that turned out as well for his team as it did for his stat sheet. He's starting to look like an NBA champion, and it seems like nothing will stop him from hoisting the Larry O'Brien Trophy.

He's had his struggles in pressure situations, and people have hated him for it. They've spoken blasphemy about how he doesn't have it in him and that he never will. 

LeBron James shut the world up tonight, but we'll be singing the same ol' song and dance if the Heat lay an egg in Game 7. But that's just something that comes with the job of being the most polarizing athlete of the new millennium, and it seems like James is up to the task.