Kyle Hightower

Joe Mazzulla has been so steady guiding the Celtics through a franchise-shaking crisis that their turbulent offseason has taken a back seat to their championship aspirations. The team rewarded him by turning a temporary opportunity of a lifetime into a permanent one.

Bill Belichick was truculent throughout the preseason whenever questions arose about his decision to put Matt Patricia, an assistant coach with a defensive pedigree, in charge of the Patriots’ offense.

Bill Belichick doesn’t usually watch Monday night games on television. But with the Patriots preparing to play the Bills, and with New England’s playoff hopes hinging on a victory, the longtime coach happened to have the Buffalo-Cincinnati game on. That means Belichick was like millions of others watching live as Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field because his heart had stopped. “Life is bigger than this game. And I think this is one of those humbling moments for all of us,” Belichick said Thursday. That’s because what he saw took him back to 1997 and another game he’ll never forget.

His team clutching a two-point lead, the ball on the 1-yard line and the season in the balance, Mac Jones decided to improvise. Facing third-and-goal, the Patriots quarterback looked to his left and saw a Dolphins defense guarding against a run and linebacker Duke Riley spread out covering Jakobi Meyers. Jones made eye contact with his receiver, took the snap and tossed a short fade where only Meyers could reach it. He did, falling into the end zone for a touchdown. It may prove to be the play that saved the Patriots’ season.

Camera phones throughout Boston’s TD Garden were fixed on the seats adjacent the Celtics’ bench as the Prince and Princess of Wales sat courtside in the city’s hallowed arena on Wednesday. Yet it was the Celtics’ reigning basketball prince who ultimately owned the night.

Marcus Smart laughs when he thinks about how far Jaylen Brown has come since he was a rookie. There were moments during that 2016 season when he remembers a 19-year-old Brown at times recklessly driving 1-on-5 and throwing up wild shots at the rim. “His excuse was: ‘When everybody is telling me to slow down, the defense hears that, so I’m going to speed up.’ We’d be like, ‘No, that doesn’t make any sense,’” Smart recalled. “He’s using more of his grace now, to where he’s understanding that sometimes just be patient and let the game come to you instead of going and get it yourself.”

The Celtics entered the season with a built-in reason to underachieve. Ime Udoka, the man who had changed so much about their culture and led them to the NBA Finals as a first-year coach last season, was given a yearlong suspension prior to training camp for having an inappropriate relationship with a woman in the organization. But nearly a quarter into its schedule, Boston has emerged from that preseason cloud with an NBA-best 13-4 record and looks like a team that’s still capable of capitalizing on its championship window.

The NFL went 10 weeks and hundreds of kicks without a player returning a punt for a touchdown. Marcus Jones made the first of the season one to remember. The New England rookie returned a punt 84 yards for a touchdown with 5 seconds remaining and the Patriots outlasted the stunned New York Jets 10-3 on Sunday.

As a rookie NFL quarterback, Mac Jones approached nearly everything he did last season like a sponge. The formula was uncomplicated: Take in the information, concepts, plays, and instructions as presented, then execute as asked. It helped him set the standard among the league’s first-year signal callers, as he led the 2021 QB class in both yards passing (3,801) and touchdowns (22). It earned him a Pro Bowl selection and raised expectations for him and a franchise hoping to have finally found the guy to build around post-Tom Brady. If only it were that easy.

It’s a rare thing for a Red Sox fan to cheer for a member of the New York Yankees. Aaron Judge caused some of Boston’s faithful to make an exception on his latest visit to Fenway Park Judge hit his major league-leading 56th and 57th home runs, Gleyber Torres had a go-ahead three-run double in the 10th inning and the Yankees held on to beat the Red Sox 7-6 on Tuesday night. Playing in New York’s 142nd game, the Yankees slugger’s second drive of the night brought fans from both sides of the rivalry to their feet in applause as he moved four from tying the American League home run record Roger Maris set with the Yankees in 1961. “(Red Sox fans) were wearing me out on deck, I don’t know if they were cheering or not,” Judge said. “They were wearing me out. But nah, it’s all of baseball fans. Just fans all over. Red Sox, Yankees — it doesn’t matter. They came here to see a good game and to see a show. Both teams I think put on a good show for them.”

Lamar Jackson was still wearing his uniform when he walked into his postgame news conference minutes after the Baltimore Ravens earned a season-opening win over the New York Jets on Sunday. He was coming off a three-touchdown game that had provided the bulk of Baltimore’s points during its 24-9 victory. But those weren’t the only numbers he was asked about. It didn’t take long for Jackson’s contract to become a topic, with questions about whether it was true he had turned down a $250 million contract extension offer from the Ravens. “Fully guaranteed? No, there’s no truth to that,” Jackson said with a smile before his barely two-minute-old news conference was abruptly ended by the Ravens’ public relations staff. Welcome to NFL life negotiating without an agent, a risk vs. reward proposition that requires a balancing act few remain willing to take on.

Bill Russell never had to find his voice as an activist. He didn’t know any other way but to speak his mind. It’s what made the winningest athlete in team sports one of the greatest champions of activism. His belief in equality and the stances he took helped create a pathway that athletes today continue to walk in.

Raimel Tapia put his head down and started a slow jog to first base, not sure he’d gotten the pop he wanted when he drove a bases-loaded fly ball to deep center field in the third inning. Then everything about the play — and the rest of the night — changed.

Jayson Tatum knows he has taken his game to a new level in his fifth NBA season, pushing his way into the league’s top echelon of playmakers as the Boston Celtics’ go-to scorer. The three-time All-Star also knows at times he hasn’t been good enough against the Golden State Warriors during the NBA Finals and must find a way to elevate his play if he hopes to help Boston capture the franchise’s 18th championship. He doesn’t mind the spotlight, or the burden that comes with it.

There was a time when the narrative surrounding Jaylen Brown was that he was a redundant player on a Celtics team shaping its identity around budding superstar Jayson Tatum. Though he was a recent All-Star on a team packed with young, homegrown talent, Brown was considered by outsiders to be a potential trade chip Boston could use to adjust a roster that didn’t get past the conference finals during his first five seasons. Six months and a run to the NBA Finals later, Mr. Expendable is suddenly Mr. Indispensable as the Celtics pursue their 18th championship.

The Boston Celtics’ transition from a team that went from sitting just outside the top tier of the Eastern Conference to being four wins away from the franchise’s 18th championship began the moment Ime Udoka grasped the microphone at his introductory news conference last June. Flanked by the Celtics’ co-owners and new president of basketball operations Brad Stevens, the first-time coach was asked what kind of stamp he hoped to put on his new team. A smile on his face, Udoka didn’t hesitate to point out a shortcoming of his predecessor and new boss.

The Miami Heat left Jayson Tatum lying on the court with a pain in his neck in the closing minutes of Game 3. The Celtics All-Star did his part to make sure the Heat were hurting after Game 4. Tatum scored 31 points and Boston took its turn pounding Miami early, jumping out to a 26-4 lead and cruising to a 102-82 victory that evened the Eastern Conference finals at two games apiece.

In the fog of the Celtics’ Game 5 loss to Milwaukee that dropped his team into a 3-2 series hole, Boston coach Ime Udoka made a prediction. “It’ll make it sweeter when we bounce back,” he said. Two wins later, the Celtics turned their coach’s prophecy into reality.

When the Celtics slumped off the Madison Square Garden court following a buzzer-beating loss to the New York Knicks on Jan. 6, they were a team without direction. The setback dropped the Celtics to 18-21 and into 11th place in the Eastern Conference. It also came on a night in which they had given up a 25-point lead – the fifth time since the start of the season they had surrendered an advantage of 19 or more points. It felt like the preamble to a lost year following the franchise’s offseason makeover that included a transition from Brad Stevens to rookie head coach Ime Udoka. It turns out that game may have been the inflection point the Celtics needed to turn things around.

Providence coach Ed Cooley heard all the chatter following his team entering the NCAA Tournament. It helped create a narrative about the Friars: that despite earning 25 victories and winning a Big East regular-season championship, they had simply been more lucky than good because of an 11-2 record in games decided by five points or less. “The narrative on doubt and luck and this and that, yeah, it plays on you,” Cooley said. “The players will come in the locker room and talk about it, and I tongue-in-cheek it a little bit, but, you know, you got some older guys out there just willing to try to compete for respect. I don’t have to be liked, but I’ll be damned if you’re not going to respect me.”