Bedard: 5 years ago, Boston seemed to have the perfect coaching situation ... now?

There was a time, not all that long ago, that I thought it didn't get any better than the coaching situation among Boston's four major sports.

It was just five years ago, to be precise. The spring/summer of 2018.

The Bruins looked like they had struck gold with Bruce Cassidy, who went 18-8-1 taking over for Claude Julien during the 2016-17 season. The Bruins would host the seventh game of the Stanley Cup Finals in 2018-19.

Brad Stevens appeared to be a baby-faced wunderkind that was only held back by the limits of his Danny Ainge-constructed roster. Still, the Celtics would win 55 games in 2017-18 and be in the midst of a run that included three Eastern Conference Finals in four seasons.

Heck, even Bill Belichick raved about Stevens.

"Coach Stevens is incredible," Belichick told me at the time. "He always points out that the players are the ones who, regardless of the situation, have made this a special team, defying all expectations and adversity game after game after game. But he clearly is a driving force behind it. Coach Stevens is a phenomenal person, leader, teacher and strategist, and the job he does is a model for all coaches.”

The 2018 Red Sox would win 108 games and the World Series in Alex Cora's first season almost solely due to a manager that seemed to touch gold with every single thing he did. 

And then was the resident managerial genius, Belichick. The 2018 Patriots "struggled" (for them) during the regular season — they lost (gasp) back-to-back road games in December — but Belichick, Josh McDaniels and Brian Flores figured out the right run-based buttons to push down the stretch, and the Patriots won their sixth Super Bowl title. It was arguably the most unexpected title since the first one.

Man, those were the best of times. I can still smell all the success and brilliance on display by the bench bosses. Those four seemed like they had it all. Boston was going to be Titletown for years to come. Life was good.

Five years later, especially in the wake of the Celtics' ... I can't even call it embarrassing, it was much worse than that ... 128-102 defeat to go down 3-0 to the eighth-seeded Heat, it leaves you wondering ...

What the hell has happened around here?

(By the way, somebody should rip No. 6 off the Celtics' jerseys. Bill Russell must be rolling over in his grave at the sight of this team. To play with this lack of hustle, toughness and passion less than a year after Russell passed, with his number everywhere ... it's the height of disrespect.) 

Cora got unbelievably cocky, Nathan Shelley-style, in 2019 and the Sox missed the playoffs before he was embroiled in the Astros sign-stealing scandal and he was let go before coming back. The Sox have resided in the AL East basement for largely three of the past four seasons.

Cassidy merely won 67 percent of his games with a limited and aging roster, without much help from the front office for years, and was rewarded by being fired after a 107-point season.

The Bruins hired Jim Montgomery — because, apparently, Cassidy was too mean to the players — and his light approach led to 135 points, the greatest regular season in NHL history. And it contributed to them losing in the first round to the Panthers — a very good team that could go on and win the Cup — but it was still embarrassing.

So is Cassidy having the Vegas Golden Knights two wins away from the Stanley Cup, while the Bruins have been golfing for a month.

Things, stunningly, haven't been all that much better over at One Patriot Place and Brilliant Belichick. Since winning that title, Belichick ran the greatest QB ever out of town (who won a Super Bowl the next year with the Buccaneers), drafted horribly - leading to an aging and slow roster, relied on Cam Newton at QB, and then put his former defensive and special teams coordinators in charge of a promising offense. The Patriots have predictably finished with losing seasons two of the past three years and are widely predicted to finish last in the AFC East.

Then there are the Celtics. Stevens kicked upstairs in 2021 to replace Ainge and seemed to have deft touch, tabbing Ime Udoka to lead the team. His tough ways had an instant impact, as the Celtics were two wins away from winning the NBA Finals, before they lost three straight to the Warriors. Still, it seemed like the Celtics had found the perfect coach to get the underachieving Celtics to the next level.

Then Udoka was embroiled in a situation (officially: violations of team policies) that led to his suspension from the team — but it wasn't bad enough to prevent the Rockets from hiring him less than a year later. 

Meanwhile, the Celtics tabbed unheralded 34-year-old assistant Joe Mazzulla as interim head coach. After the Celtics started 42-17, the interim tag was dropped and an extension was handed out.

Unless the Celtics do something no NBA team has ever done — coming back from a 0-3 deficit — it feels like Mazzulla will be the scapegoat and fired. When your team no-shows and quits like it did last night, in that kind of spot, that's what happens.

Look, Mazzulla is definitely part of the reason why the Celtics are in this spot — his in-game adjustments have been terrible, and his coddling of the players has set the stage for the revolt that we're seeing now. The players will never blame themselves, so they're making it look worse for Mazzulla.

But this is the NBA, and plenty of teams have won without an advantage with the clipboard — if their stars play up to their level.

The players are the issue with the Celtics. This core of Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart have now failed in the biggest spots with three different coaches. But they love collecting those All-NBA, All-Defensive honors, shoes, commercials ... whatever.

This team has lacked toughness and guts for years, and now they're being exposed by the tough-as-nails Jimmy Butler and his group of less-talented teammates. 

The Celtics look like one of those soft, entitled AAU teams where the collection of the most talented players in five states have all been told how great they are since they were 8, were never asked to face adversity by their snowplow moms, dads and coaches. Then they run into another team with hard-working kids from a four-town area who have been playing together for five years. The more talented team can't compete with the heart, hustle, strategy and teamwork of the other team.

Tatum and SuperMax Brown aren't going anywhere. And if they import some toughness and guts onto this team, it still feels like Mazzulla will be the fall guy.

Another soft season from Monty — it's half surprising the Jacobs haven't made him a one-and-done scapegoat yet — and he'll meet the same fate.

Cora's doing fine with what he has given by Chaim Bloom, but something is bound to change on Yawkey Way if the Sox can't get hot again.

Who knows what the heck will happen with the Patriots, and if this will be Belichick's final season if they do indeed finish in the basement of the division they once owned.

Of course, it would be nice if the owners of the four teams seemed as bought into the product as they used to be. We'll leave Wyc Grousbeck to this side, but John Henry, Jeremy Jacobs and Robert Kraft are more distant from their teams now, even if some of them talk a good game about still being on top of it. They aren't — at least not like they were when their teams were collecting trophies for this town at an amazing rate.

What a long, strange trip to underachieving and mediocrity it's been the past five years around here.

Not too long ago, it felt like great springs and summers would coast us into fulfilling falls and winters — for years to come.

The Bruins are now chronic chokers. The Red Sox are waiting for homegrown talent, for some reason, while having the highest ticket prices in the league. The soft Celtics annually shrink on the biggest stage. And the Patriots seem to waiting for Belichick to decide when he's done while the AFC laps them.

Man, that was fast.