On Wednesday night, just when it looked like a game, the Celtics squashed the Thunder.

The Boston Celtics went into their game against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday night on a mission. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams were out, but that didn’t take away from Boston’s goal—securing the best record in the NBA.

“Talked about it before the game,” Joe Mazzulla said during his post-game press conference. “Trying to treat this game as like the clincher. To kind of put that on ourselves to be able to do that. I think it was important for us to simulate that.”

As the season drags on and the games lose meaning, Boston is trying to find meaning.

“We have to find, for each of these games as we’re heading towards like the end of the season, some sort of motivation,” said Kristaps Porzingis. “And tonight, it was like, ‘Okay, if we win this game, we can achieve something.’ Joe just kind of poked us a little bit and got us going for the game, knowing that that we can clinch it, and we went out there and took care of business.”

The first quarter saw the Celtics get out to a slow start. Both teams were knotted at 19 apiece before Boston made its first run of the night, exploding to end the frame on an 11-4 run.

Boston extended their lead to 14 by halftime, but the third quarter was when the Thunder fought back. A blistering hot 10-of-17 shooting frame accompanied by 13 free throws led to a 36-point third. At one point, the Thunder had cut the lead down to just five points.

That’s when the Celtics had seen enough.

“We are extremely talented,” said Jaylen Brown. “I think we’re well-coached as well. So, you put those things together, you’re destined to have some really good games. They had some players out. We try not to take our foot off the gas. We were able to pull away towards the end.”

Brown’s 15-point fourth quarter led the way as he brushed off an otherwise ugly night to help the Celtics surge forward. They outscored the Thunder 42-17 in the fourth, earning a 35-point victory by night’s end.

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The Celtics’ losses have been few and far between this year, but that makes them sting even more when they come around. And blowing a 30-point lead to the Hawks left a poor taste in the mouths of fans. But Boston has been remarkably good at bending without breaking this season.

Opposing teams put up a fight, go on a run, and the Celtics are almost always right there to squash it.

“Just understanding the ebbs and flows of a game,” Mazzulla said of his team’s ability to balloon leads. “There are natural runs. There are natural variants within a game. And so having an awareness to why the run has been made, having an awareness to how to stop that and how to control the momentum of either side of the ball.

“And so the guys have a good awareness of that and can make plays on both ends of the floor to kind of combat that.”

Boston’s 22-7 run to open the fourth quarter completely sunk the Thunder. Already without two of their three biggest stars, Mark Daigneault used two timeouts—one in the midst of the aforementioned run and one at the tail-end.

A barrage of threes, points off turnovers, and crisp ball movement leading to buckets rapidly bit at the ankles of Oklahoma City. What was once a close game flipped into something completely different. The Celtics took over.

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In the blink of an eye, and with the roaring crowd of a packed TD Garden behind them, the Celtics had sent the Thunder packing. Energy was rushing throughout the building (or at least as much energy as Game 76 of the regular season can produce).

As the Celtics find ways to make games mean something, runs like that are what can be translated to the postseason. In those moments, the Celtics are unbeatable. At least, that’s how they feel.

“We want to feel that way. We want to feel like, in these moments, when we turn up, we want to feel invincible,” said Porzingis. “Like nobody can mess with us. And we have that level that we can go to. And then we did it today again.

“And I think that’s something that Joe has done a good job of developing for us. And kind of putting that in our minds and in our toolboxes, and then opening it when we need it.”

Wednesday’s mission was to clinch the top seed in the NBA. The Celtics succeeded. They secured their first 60-win season since 2009.

But as has been the case all season, it won’t matter by the time this article is out.

“It’s just a testament to the guys,” Mazzulla said of clinching the NBA’s best record. “And so we should enjoy it tonight, and when we wake up tomorrow, nobody cares. So, just got to get back to work.”