BOSTON — This is just the way it’s going to be with the 2023-24 Boston Celtics: At the very moment you decide to trust these guys, as in settling in for a long, joyous romp through the postseason, that’s when they’re going to eat your heart out and leave you with the reality check.

Then again, maybe it’s not just some new Celtics thing.

Maybe it’s some new Boston thing.

GO DEEPER

Thursday’s NBA playoff scores and takeaways

By the close of business Thursday night at TD Garden, after the Cleveland Cavaliers had finished a 118-94 drubbing of the drowsy, awful-shooting Celtics, a disturbing trend of Boston teams going belly up in Game 2 of a playoff series had continued. Keeping in mind the obvious, which is that the Celtics and Bruins have nothing in common other than playing their home games in the same building, consider the blatant disrespect these teams have shown prosperity over the past 2 1/2 weeks:

On April 22, the Bruins lost 3-2 to the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals — this after a 5-1 blowout victory in Game 1.

On April 24, the Celtics lost Game 2 of their Eastern Conference quarterfinal series, 111-101 to the Miami Heat, after rolling to a 114-94 victory in Game 1.

On May 8, the Bruins were outclassed in every way by the Florida Panthers in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, losing 6-1, after earning an easy 5-1 victory in Game 1.

On May 9 at a packed, noisy-till-it-wasn’t TD Garden, Donovan Mitchell led all scorers with 29 points — 23 in the second half — to lead the Cavaliers to their easy victory over the Celtics. And to think the Celtics won Game 1 of this semifinal series by a similarly one-sided margin, 120-95.

The Boston Celtics are 14-14 at home in the playoffs over the last three seasons. pic.twitter.com/tZi8EaXo1U

— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) May 10, 2024

Before continuing with the Celtics’ soft, no-show performance in Game 2, we’ll submit one more Celtics-Bruins parallel. With 4:58 remaining and Cleveland’s lead sitting at a bloated 24 points, Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla removed Jayson Tatum, Jrue Holiday, Jaylen Brown, Derrick White and Payton Pritchard. Just as Bruins coach Jim Montgomery removed Jeremy Swayman in the third period of Wednesday night’s embarrassing loss to the Panthers, even though Swayman had been his top performer up to that point.

Why did Mazzulla pull his starters?

“I just felt that was the best thing to do at that time,” Mazzulla said. Left unsaid is that this game had ended much earlier. The game was a 54-54 tie at halftime, but then came a horrible settling-the-issue third quarter in which the Green went 0-for-8 on 3-point attempts. Even worse, the Cavaliers kept answering Boston’s clanky, off-the-mark 3-point attempts with nothing-but-net 3-pointers, connecting on seven of 10 attempts in the fateful third quarter.

The Pulse Newsletter

Free, daily sports updates direct to your inbox. Sign up

Free, daily sports updates direct to your inbox. Sign up

Buy

The disparity was jarring. During one particular stretch, a missed 3-point attempt by Al Horford was quickly followed by a trey from Darius Garland, after which a missed 3-point attempt by White was quickly followed by a trey from Mitchell. All that happened in just over a minute. Cleveland’s lead was only 70-63, but it was easy to see where this was headed.

When Pritchard swished a 3-pointer early in the fourth quarter, the Celtics should have removed the ball from the game and sent it to the New England Sports Museum.

“We missed some shots, and we let that translate, and it’s the playoffs and we can’t let that happen,” conceded Brown, who was 0-for-6 on 3-point attempts. “If you miss a shot, you have to guard a guy on the other end.

“We can’t miss shots and then allow them to make shots,” he said. “On top of that, we lost the rebound battle. So we didn’t help ourselves tonight.”

GO DEEPER

Hornets hire Celtics assistant Charles Lee as head coach

Tatum offered an explanation that isn’t going to go over well on the talk shows.

“It’s as simple as sometimes you just don’t shoot as you would like,” he said. “You play enough basketball, the law of averages, it’ll equal out eventually. In the meantime, you find a way to win, you find a way to impact the game in other ways.”

Given how they were dismissed from the Eastern Conference finals last year by the Heat, and given this year’s sky-high expectations, the ol’ it-just-wasn’t-our-night excuse is going to be a tough sell. Very tough.

Yes, Tatum was forward-looking when he said, “Just get ready for Saturday.” And he was 100 percent correct when he pointed out that it is, after all, the playoffs, which means nonstop solid competition.

“The world thinks we’re never supposed to lose, we’re supposed to win every game by 25,” Tatum said. “But it’s not going to be like that all the time. We don’t expect it to be easy. There’s a team playing us in the second round of the playoffs.”

That team is the Cleveland Cavaliers. The 2023-24 Cavs went 48-34 during the regular season, which means they won’t be remembered as one of the great teams in NBA history no matter how this series turns out. Nor are they cupcakes. But why are we even having this discussion? The Cavs submitted a fine effort in winning Game 2, but they had help: While they were hitting on 46.4 percent of their 3-point attempts, the Celtics hit on only 22.9 percent. And it’s not like the poor, beleaguered Celtics had hands and heads in their faces all game.

They were just missing. That’s the story of Game 2 for the Celtics. Again.

(Photo of the Cavs’ Caris LeVert dunking: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)