Bill Burt

BOSTON — Let's take the positive approach here before the national gurus get their meat hooks on the Boston Celtics' recent disappointing playoff experience.

The Celtics, as Doc Rivers implied after yesterday's 99-65 Game 7 dismantling of the Atlanta Hawks, are back.

He was talking about Game 7 — especially the defense — but I'm taking the leap back onto the bandwagon.

With LeBron James & Co. arriving today in Boston for Tuesday's Eastern Conference semifinal opener, let's not dwell on Rivers' one-and-done resume from postseasons past and the Big Three's playoff duds.

Maybe, just maybe, the growing pains this team was supposed to go through in November and December happened in the three playoff games in Atlanta.

The playoffs, as we are told ad infinitum, are a different animal. Yes, even different than the Texas swing or five games on the West Coast for February vacation.

In the playoffs, you have to figure out, sometimes painfully over seven games, who is "the man" and who your team is. Like Paul Pierce, who tried and failed to be a superstar in Atlanta for Games 3 and 4 before taking the ball and dominating in Game 5.

It's a process that even possible Hall of Famers need to experience.

"I was saying the other day to the coaches that we hadn't played a meaningful game in a month-and-a-half," said Celtics coach Doc Rivers. "Maybe this was our growing pains. Maybe we needed this."

Think about it. The Celtics played nearly six months of nearly flawless basketball. Even that three-game losing streak in Denver, Golden State and Phoenix in February was trumped by a 10-game win streak immediately afterward.

Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen somehow figured out "who" would get the ball "where" and "why" before the season started on Nov. 2. Then you add in veterans — James Posey, Eddie House and later, Sam

Cassell — and a "green" point guard, Rajon Rondo, who was handed the reins with one year of experience, and you realize how special 66-16 really was.

Let's give credit to the Atlanta Hawks, who created matchup problems with their big, athletic forwards — rookie Al Horford and Josh Smith. And in the fourth quarter of any close game, Joe Johnson was the best player on the floor.

But the Hawks only won 37 games this past winter and we all know there are bus stations full of young, talented and promising teams who eventually fade into oblivion.

"This was a learning experience," said Posey, who played on the Miami Heat championship team in 2006. "It's not the same as the regular season. It's different. Everything is different."

The regular season never has been "the" problem for the Big Three. They all are on paths to the Hall of Fame on their All-Star appearances, awards and numbers alone.

The problem has been playoff time. Garnett, Pierce and Allen need this for their legacies.

"I still think the Celtics are the team to beat," said Horford, who scored only eight points yesterday. "They play the best defense in the league. They're still the best team I've seen."

The Celtics have some kinks to work out. The best team on the road during the regular season (31-10), they were a shell of themselves, especially on defense, in Atlanta.

But yesterday, at home, they were awesome.

"Two things I noticed from this series was that in the two biggest games we played our best — Game 5 and Game 7," said Rivers. "A lot of the players have been through a lot of playoff games. But we haven't been through any as a team. This was important for us."

The Hawks did something nobody imagined. They made the Celtics realize that getting from late April to mid-June is going to take a lot of blood, sweat and tears.

So bring on the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Of course, the less blood and tears the better.

You can e-mail Bill Burt at bburt@eagletribune.com.

Saving Face

The Big 3 and Doc Rivers as a coach haven't had much playoff success. Here are the numbers prior to this season:

Name%Years in NBA%Playoff series record

Kevin Garnett%12%1-9

Ray Allen%11%3-4

Paul Pierce%9%4-4

Doc Rivers%8%0-4

%40%8-21

Note: In those combined 40 seasons, they failed to make the playoffs 20 times and none of them has reached the NBA finals.