And Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens got how many votes from his peers for NBA coach of the year?
Zero?
Really?
ZERO????
Call me stupid, but doesn't this seem at least a wee bit befuddling after the underhanded, underaged Celtics crushed LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers 108-83 Sunday afternoon to grab a 1-0 lead in their best-of-seven series to decide the Eastern Conference champion?
In case you didn't realize it or have understandably forgotten it, the Big Green is accomplishing this stunning run without the two players it expected to lead the way - Gordon Hayward and Kyrie Irving, both done for the season due to injuries that happened after they joined the team last summer. Then backup point guard Byron Larkin messed up his shoulder midway through Boston's conference semifinal series against the Philadelphia 76ers.
That means that this supposedly unimpressive coach, working all season without Hayward and the entirety of the playoffs without Irving, is now within three wins of the NBA Finals. Every team in the league should be so bereft of coaching talent.
This isn't to say former Toronto Raptors coach Dwayne Casey - voted coach of the year by his fellow grease board geniuses before being fired less than two full days later - didn't deserve his award for the Raptors' 59-win regular season. It's also not to say several other NBA coaches didn't deserve a vote or two.
But c'mon. Zero votes for Stevens? Zero votes for a guy who just might be the greatest basketball mind the league has seen since Larry Brown, if not Red Holzman, the former New York Knicks wizard?
And, no, I haven't forgotten that former Boston mastermind Red Auerbach - who won all but one NBA title awarded from 1957 to 1966 - was pretty good with a clipboard himself. He probably should be viewed as the gold standard, though some would argue, with much ammunition, that Phil Jackson's 11 titles won with two different teams was a more impressive feat.
But Auerbach's genius was arguably more in talent evaluation - Bill Russell, John Havlicek, Sam Jones, Dave Cowens, Larry Bird, to name but five - than in-game strategy. As for Jackson - yes, the triangle offense was brilliant, but so were the players running it. The referees often protected Michael Jordan during the Chicago Bulls' six title runs, and much of the Los Angeles Lakers' success came with Jackson having two of the game's top five players at that time at his fingertips in Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal.
Take a look at the struggles of the Knicks of late thanks to Jackson's curious decisions running that train wreck from the front office. It wasn't a pretty sight.
But Boston under Stevens is a different matter, even if much of the credit must be shared with club president Danny Ainge, who seems to have had a bit of Auerbach rub off on him in the player evaluation department.
To watch Boston play is to better understand why a younger Stevens guided Butler's men's basketball team to NCAA championship games in 2010 and 2011. On offense, the ball moves. Constantly. Effortlessly. Much as it did for Holzman's 1970 and 1973 NBA title teams. The huge difference is those Knicks were a magical mix of cerebral, unselfish veterans: Jerry Lucas, Bill Bradley, Jackson off the bench, Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Earl "The Pearl" Monroe in 1973.
The Celtics are starting 24-year-old Terry Rozier, 21-year-old Jaylen Brown and 20-year-old Jason Tatum, who could win an NBA title before he can legally sip champagne to celebrate it.
Then there's the defense that made King James look more like clumsy comedian Kevin James by holding the game's best player to 15 points, nine assists and seven rebounds - while forcing him into seven turnovers - after he entered this game averaging a preposterous 34, 9 and 9.
"They're having fun out there," Cavs radio analyst Jim Chones, the one-time Marquette great, said of the Celtics during Sunday afternoon's broadcast.
Certainly Cleveland can end that fun if it can reach the NBA Finals for the fourth straight year. Anyone old enough to remember Boston's 1985 Memorial Day Massacre of the Lakers (148-114) in Game 1 of that year's NBA Finals knows one blowout does not a title make.
But Stevens was already coaching against that possibility early Sunday evening, knowing well that unless James and the Cavs can hand the Celts their first home playoff loss of the year, Boston will reach the title series for the first time since 2010.
"I think we're very alert to the fact that we'll get a heavyweight punch on Tuesday night," he said. "We've got a lot of room to improve."
Perhaps. But so do all those NBA coaches who delivered a heavyweight punch to the gut of common sense when they completely ignored Stevens for coach of the year.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.