Jaylen Brown scored 41 points against the Hawks on Saturday.
Jaylen Brown scored 41 points against the Hawks on Saturday.Mike Stewart/Associated Press
ATLANTA — The response from adversity and slippage is admirable for these Celtics, and they rolled into State Farm Arena on Saturday and completely obliterated the Atlanta Hawks in what was supposed to be a challenging road game against a conference rival.
The Hawks were coming off a West Coast road trip and looked flat and lethargic, but the Celtics had a business-like approach to this matchup. They used ball movement, hot shooting, and flawless defense, especially on top Hawk Jalen Johnson, to lead by 34 points at halftime and walk away to another road win.
The Celtics picked up yet another game on the freefalling Knicks and are second in the Eastern Conference by 1 ½ games with an interesting MLK holiday matchup with the first-place Detroit Pistons in Michigan.
This team continues to impress, continues to improve, and continues to trounce their Eastern Conference rivals as they officially completed the first half of the season. Boston improved to 13-4 against the eight teams that trail the Celtics in the Eastern Conference standings, with the 76ers the only team with more than one victory.
If the Jaylen Brown-led Celtics haven’t proved they are a legitimate Eastern contender by now, then the judgment of this team is slanted. Forty one games in, without their best player in Jayson Tatum, and the Celtics expect to win every night and respond with vigor and fortitude when they don’t.
They began this four-game road trip by losing what was supposed to be the easiest game at Indiana. They then played poorly for the first 2½ quarters before dominating the Miami Heat on Thursday. And then against the Hawks, they went on separate 27-14 and 25-8 second-quarter runs behind the torrid shooting of Brown and Sam Hauser for a 34-point halftime lead.
Meanwhile, Tatum is sitting courtside, soaking in the fact his team is marching up the Eastern standings in his absence and working his way toward a return. During a commercial shoot last week, Tatum was dunking the ball with ease, according to witnesses of the shoot. He is getting closer and the Celtics are getting better.
“We’ve just got to be better; it’s that time of year where we have to get better,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said.
“Whether you win or lose, the next day’s film session is the most important day. We have to understand where we’re at, the things we have to do to become a better team. A credit to those guys, starting with Jaylen, that have that mentality. And that’s the goal [Sunday], we land, we go to film, and figure out where we’ve got to get better.”
Mazzulla deserves Coach of the Year votes for the job he has done with his revamped roster that includes a handful of players who have elevated their games because they’ve been placed in the right situations, including Brown.
The Celtics are becoming more of a national story because they refused to disappear following Tatum’s injury and the departure of four veterans, including Kristaps Porzingis, who sat out Saturday’s game with Achilles tendinitis and has missed 26 of Atlanta’s 43 games with various ailments.
Porzingis’s former teammates greeted him warmly afterward, and he hung outside the Celtics’ locker room and caught up with members of the team’s training staff for 20 minutes. His fondness of Boston was obvious, and the organization feels the same way, but it has moved on to the challenge of defying odds and quieting critics who were convinced the Celtics would slide into oblivion.
“It’s a balance of toughness and grace,” Mazzulla said of his approach to exceeding expectations. “It’s a long season. Just because we played well tonight doesn’t mean anything the next day. If we had lost tonight, it doesn’t mean anything the next day. As long as we come in the next day not knowing if we won or lost [the night before], we can just get better. I think the guys do a great job of whether we lose a close game when you come in the next day and you can’t tell what the result was.”
So Mazzulla will continue to respect the process, and he challenged a goaltending call on Amari Williams with the Celtics up 37 in the fourth quarter because the center clipped a shot by Corey Kispert before it hit the backboard and Mazzulla wanted to back his rookie. He won the challenge.
He also allowed Sam Hauser to chase Marcus Smart’s record of 11 3-pointers in a game. Hauser chucked six in a 2:04 span in the fourth quarter, all misses. Hauser was removed after the final miss. Mazzulla was flexible enough to condone individual accomplishments, but eventually the Celtics had to shift focus back to the bigger picture.
So Sunday is a new day. The team will prepare for Detroit with the goal of winning but also improving in the process. That focus has been present since a rigorous training camp as Mazzulla insisted the goal was to win a championship.
Such a lofty goal isn’t so outrageous anymore, but the Celtics are light years from that point and their coach will ensure they don’t skip any steps.
Gary Washburn is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at gary.washburn@globe.com. Follow him @GwashburnGlobe.