By BILL REYNOLDS, The Providence Journal

We have watched Paul Pierce grow up. We have watched him come to Boston, a California kid by way of the University of Kansas, who inexplicably fell to the Celtics with the 10th pick in the NBA Draft in 1998. And from the beginning, he could score. Oh, how he could score.

Want to know one big reason the Boston Celtics just might be the best team in basketball? Besides the additions of Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, of course? They are no longer young. Young teams don't win in the NBA. Not a whole lot, anyway.

After all the moves the Boston Celtics made last summer, we all knew they were going to be better this year. But this much better? No one expected that. But here they are at 54-13, the best record in the NBA.

This is what it has come down to: One of the best pitchers in baseball history in front of a congressional hearing. One of the best pitchers in baseball history trying to blow away United State representatives the way he used to blow away Major League hitters. Roger Clemens fighting for his legacy. That's what this has come down to.

So it ended. What would have been the New England Patriots' fourth Super Bowl title in seven years. The chance to be the first team in NFL history to finish a season 19-0. The chance to achieve perfection. The chance to go down in history as arguably the best team in history.

Once, the Super Bowl was just a football game. No more. Now it's a cultural event. Bigger than the World Series, bigger than the Final Four, bigger than the NBA Finals, bigger than The Masters, or a big prize fight, or the Kentucky Derby, or anything else you can name in this country. The biggest sporting event we have.

The first shot across the bow was in Tuesday's New York Post, with the front-page picture of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in a hooded sweatshirt and carrying flowers, his right foot in a white protective boot, walking through Greenwich Village, while a subhead screamed, "Girlie Man Limps Home."

Maybe you have to be of a certain age to truly appreciate that the Patriots and the Giants are both in the Super Bowl.

Move over Peyton. Brady's the man now. The debate's over. Simplistic? No doubt. Also true.

Once upon a time, the "K" signs would line the right-field wall in Fenway Park like Kewpie dolls at a summer carnival.