One down, 15 to go.

After a 64-win season and a blowout of the Miami Heat in Game 1 of the 2024 NBA Playoffs, time to state the obvious: It’s Banner or Bust for your Celtics.

The Brad Stevens Era began in 2013 with a 25-win team. In the 10 years after, Boston made the playoffs every year. In 2017, Stevens took the C’s on a surprise run to the Eastern Conference Finals. Jayson Tatum came along soon after, and the Celtics lost one round short of the Finals in 2018 and 2020. Stevens handed the whistle to Ime Udoka in 2022, and he got that team to the Finals.

Udoka then ran into some issues. The Celtics kept chugging, though, and in Joe Mazzulla’s first year he got them back to the ECF … another loss.

That won’t fly in 2024. Anything less than a Finals appearance will be considered an abject failure. Stevens moved into the front office and has assembled a team perhaps more talented than the “Ubuntu” Celtics of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. (This crew needs three rings before they can be mentioned alongside the Larry Bird-era Celts or Bill Russell’s 11 crowns. Get back to me in 2029.)

The Celtics have followed a familiar path for up-and-coming NBA teams: Take some lumps in the playoffs (usually at the hands of one particular team … in this case, that would be Miami); get past that; seal the deal.

As constructed, what is the weak spot of the Celtics? Before the season began, after Stevens masterfully landed Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday, it was thought that he sacrificed depth, leaving the team vulnerable. But Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser had career years, and the ageless Al Horford is still doing Al Horford things with much less wear-and-tear than he’d have otherwise had.

Other contributors did their thing, but as playoff rotations shorten up, the Celtics have a solid 8 guys, and that’s all they really need.

Teams that could threaten the Celts in the playoffs all have glaring issues: Miami is without Jimmy Butler. The Knicks are without Julius Randle. Sixers’ star Joel Embiid has been hobbled. So is Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Bucks.

Against that backdrop, it’s all waiting for the Celtics.

So really, the only potential question mark is Mazzulla. He’s carded 121 wins as an NBA coach in two seasons. Pretty epic stuff.

But Mazzulla’s youth and relative inexperience is obvious next to Erik Spoelstra, Doc Rivers, Rick Carlisle, Nick Nurse, Tom Thibodeau. He’s simply not at that level. Yet.

Guy V. Lewis was the head coach at the University of Houston for 30 years. He never had a losing season after his first three years, winning 68% of the time, culminating with the “Phi Slama Jama” Cougars of Akeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler. Lewis, a dead ringer for Grandpa Munster, was an ace recruiter and that hurt his reputation as a coach. People said he’d just roll out the basketballs at practice and guys like Elvin Hayes and former Celtic Don Chaney would do the rest.

With the loaded Celtics, some think Mazzulla has a similar coaching profile. And he’s won at an even greater clip than Lewis.

But make no mistake, this season is now a referendum on Mazzulla, who was thrust into the job following Udoka’s self-inflicted meltdown. If the Celtics fall short of the Final, unless there’s a key injury (and that might not stop them), Mazzulla will take the hit.

No pressure, Joe, you’re just in the most pressurized environment in pro sports. What has Bill Belichick done for us lately?