Boston guard Malcolm Brogdon is ready for his first foray into the playoffs with the Celtics. “I thought I’d be coming to a championship team,” he said. “That’s what we have here.” Steven Senne/Associated Press
Malcolm Brogdon needed all of two words and a split second to share what clinching the No. 2 seed in the East meant to him Wednesday night.
“That’s everything,” he said.
Brogdon’s 29 points spurred the Celtics to their 97-93 win over the Raptors at TD Garden, which, in combination with the Bucks’ win over the Bulls, solidified Milwaukee and Boston as the top seeds in the East. This will be Brogdon’s first go-round in Boston, something he treasures. Brogdon believes he’s found exactly what he was hoping for after being traded to the Celtics last summer following a difficult two-year stint in Indiana.
“I thought I’d be coming to a championship team,” he said. “That’s what we have here.”
Jaylen Brown, a playoff veteran, said he still cherishes a top-two seed. The Celtics will have home-court advantage through at least the first two rounds of the playoffs. Last year, they reached the Finals as the No. 2 seed.
“You can’t take stuff like that for granted. Being on a 50-plus-win team is an honor,” Brown said. “It takes a lot of hard work that goes into that. It doesn’t come around as often as you probably think it does. And to be a part of it is a blessing for sure.”
Celtics Coach Joe Mazzulla acknowledged the benefits of his team’s solidified playoff positioning, which starts with the luxury of being able to rest players for the remainder of the regular season. But he also cautioned that seeding doesn’t mean everything.
“It’s good. I’m happy for our guys. Seeding doesn’t matter as much as the mindset that we’ve had the entire season. … I think we’re developing the proper mindset as we head into the rest of the season and the playoffs, and so it’s good,” he said. “I’m happy for the guys, I’m happy for the win they had today.”
It’s unclear how the Celtics will handle their final two games of the regular season: Friday’s rematch with Toronto and a home season finale versus Atlanta. The Celtics are likely to face the Hawks or Heat in the first round of the playoffs. Miami did not play Wednesday, when Atlanta blew out the Wizards and closed to within 1 1/2 games of the No. 7 seed.
As of now, Miami will host the Hawks in the opening play-in tournament game Tuesday, and the winner of that matchup will face Boston in Game 1 of a first-round playoff series next weekend.
Until then, the Celtics intend to prepare for every possible opponent and outcome down the stretch and steal a few more moments to soak in what they’ve accomplished thus far.
“The last two seasons for me were rough, not being able to win. I’m a winner,” Brogdon said. “I feel like I’ve been known as a winner, and I want to be known as a winner when I’m done playing in this league. And I want to win at the highest level and that’s winning a championship. So being in Boston, being a Celtic fits me perfectly.”
THE CELTICS were plenty impressive throughout the season as the reigning East champs, and that means the accolades should come. That list includes Brogdon, who’s up for the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award.
“It would be great,” Brogdon said of the award. “I think it would be a testament to the team. I think we’ve got guys on the team that are accomplishing a lot this year. … It’d be another award for the team for sure. But that’s not my focus. That’s not the team’s focus.”
Brogdon has put together one last push for the award over the past few games. The Knicks’ Immanuel Quickley has been making his own noise, including a 29-point outing Wednesday. But Brogdon has been a dutiful sixth man all season, averaging 14.7 points, 4.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists over his 66 games. The most recent data point was his 29 points in Wednesday’s win over the Raptors.
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