The Cavaliers treated the Celtics to a good, old-fashioned butt-whooping Thursday night at TD Garden, embarrassing the NBA’s top team on its home floor in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.

The 118-95 loss at TD Garden was Boston’s second-worst of the season, trailing only a 135-102 defeat against Milwaukee that came on the road, on the second night of a back-to-back, after going to overtime the game before.

That January clunker proved to be a forgettable speed bump in an otherwise phenomenal Celtics season. Jayson Tatum seemed to view Thursday’s result the same way.

Boston’s best player said the Cavs’ lopsided victory — which evened the best-of-seven East semis as the series shifts to Cleveland for Game 3 on Saturday — didn’t rattle any alarm bells inside the Celtics’ locker room.

“Nobody was in there defeated, deflated,” Tatum said postgame. “We never want to lose, especially in the playoffs. A lot of things we can learn from it, and we get it. The world thinks we’re never supposed to lose, we’re going to win every game by 25, and it’s not going to be like that every time.

“We don’t expect it to be easy. This is a good team we’re playing. It’s the second round of the playoffs. It’s just going to be a fun rest of the series, especially come Saturday. But we’ve bounced back plenty of times. We’ve lost, what, (18) games this year? So I like to think that we respond pretty well the few times that we did lose.”

That is true. The Celtics haven’t lost more than two consecutive games at any point this season, and one of their four two-game losing streaks came after they already clinched the NBA’s best record and began resting starters.

But the Celtics have now lost Game 2 at home in consecutive playoff series against less talented opponents who were missing key starters (Miami’s Jimmy Butler and Terry Rozier in Round 1; Jarrett Allen for Cleveland). And both of those losses were by double digits.

In 82 games before the playoffs, Boston lost by 10 or more points just four times — and never at home.

Tatum was asked whether the Celtics’ incredible regular season — 64-18 record, elite offense, elite defense, third-best net rating in NBA history — “spoiled” people into expecting perfection.

In response, Tatum pointed to the narrative that the Celtics — with their starting five of himself, Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, Jrue Holiday and, when healthy, Kristaps Porzingis — could be considered a “super team.”

“I mean, that’s the narrative that you might see on TV — the idea that we have a super team,” he said. “It’s twofold, right? We didn’t have the Coach of the Year. We didn’t have MVP. We only had two All-Stars (Tatum and Brown).

“So, they say we’re a super team, but we didn’t get awarded like we are. But we know we’ve got a good team. We’re not perfect. We play the right way, more often than not, and we know we’ve got to be better. But I guess the same people that are spoiled by success, we don’t pay attention to those things. We just go out there and control what we can control.”

That reference to individual awards likely won’t sit well with some fans, and Tatum’s postgame tone was noticeably different from that of Brown, who repeatedly called the Celtics’ defensive performance in Game 2 “unacceptable.”

Tatum also shrugged off his own less-than-stellar start to this postseason. Seven games in, the five-time All-Star is shooting just 40.7% from the floor and 26.8% from 3-point range, which both would be playoff career lows. He’s topped 25 points just once and has yet to score 30.

“Sometimes you don’t shoot the ball as well as you would like,” Tatum said. “But you play enough basketball, the law of averages, it’ll equal out eventually. But in the meantime, find a way to win. Find a way to impact the game in other ways. Scoring is kind of the least of my worries.”

The Celtics’ enviable depth has allowed them to get by without huge games from their franchise centerpiece — like in Game 1 against Cleveland, when he scored 18 points on 19 shots and Boston still won by 35 — but they’ll eventually need Tatum to start performing like the superstar he is.

On Thursday, with Porzingis out with a calf strain and Brown and White going an uncharacteristic 1-for-14 from three, Tatum couldn’t carry the Celtics. He finished with 25 points on 7-of-17 shooting, seven rebounds and six assists, and was outplayed by Cavs star Donovan Mitchell, who went off for 23 second-half points as Cleveland dominated the final two quarters.

“I obviously wish I would make more shots,” Tatum said. “But I’ve been in the league long enough that sometimes you just don’t make them and you’ve got to still continue to take the right shots. It’ll even out.

“But I’m not really getting caught up on that. I know how to score the ball.”