BOSTON — Call him old. Call him dirty.

It just fires up Kevin Garnett even more — and that didn’t work out very well for the Atlanta Hawks in their firstround playoff series against the Boston Celtics.

Upset by comments from a Hawks owner calling him “the dirtiest guy in the league,” Garnett responded with 28 points and 14 rebounds to give the Celtics an 83-80 victory in Game 6 on Thursday night that eliminated Atlanta.

“Thank you to their owner for giving me some extra gas tonight,” Garnett said.

The Celtics will open the Eastern Conference semifinals on Saturday in Boston against the Philadelphia 76ers, who eliminated East No. 1 seed Chicago in six games with a 79- 78 victory earlier Thursday.

“At least we don’t have to travel,” said Celtics coach Doc Rivers, who had hoped to be playing a day or two later. “I’d rather be going to Game 1 here than Game 7 in Atlanta.”

Garnett topped his regularseason high of 25 points and had five blocks and three steals for Boston. Paul Pierce had 18 points despite playing with a sprained left knee, and Rajon Rondo had 14 points and eight assists.

Josh Smith had 19 points and nine rebounds for Atlanta, which failed to advance in the playoffs for the first time in four years. Joe Johnson had 17 points, Marvin Williams added 16 and eight rebounds and Al Horford had 15 points and nine rebounds.

But Horford missed the first of two foul shots with 2.3 seconds left after he was tackled by Marquis Daniels to avoid an easy dunk that would have tied the game. After he made the second, the Celtics got the ball to Pierce, who was fouled and made both free throws.

The Boston crowd burst into a cheer — even the Celtics players were checking it out — near the end of the third quarter when the final play of the Sixers-Bulls game was shown on the scoreboard. Instead of having to face Chicago on the road — even without injured star Derrick Rose — the Celtics will have home-court advantage against eighth-seeded Philadelphia.

The Hawks went five minutes without scoring early in the fourth quarter as the Celtics turned a two-point game into a 74-65 lead.

Atlanta led 79-78 when Garnett made a turnaround jumper in the lane over Smith to put Boston ahead by one. Smith missed a long rainbow jumper and Ray Allen got the rebound with 10 seconds left, but he made only one of two free throws.

Johnson drove to the basket but Pierce blocked his shot and Garnett tipped it out of bounds with 3.1 seconds left. The Hawks got the ball to Horford in the lane but as he went up for the dunk or layup, Daniels, who played just one minute in the game, wrapped him up and kept him from scoring.