The first rule of playoff basketball is never apologize for a win, no matter how ugly. Here’s another one. Call it the Rondo rule: Just because you record double figures in three statistical categories doesn’t mean you had a great game.

Only the Celtics could play against a team that was without its best player and facing a lineup that included ghosts from the aughts like Tracy McGrady and Erick Dampier and turn it into a life or death struggle. Only Rajon Rondo could turn in a stat line of 17 points, 14 rebounds and 12 assists and have it be considered a quirky off night.

They never do anything easy. The Celtics are flawed, old and stubborn and while Rondo has youth on his side, those other two adjectives fit him quite nicely, as well. Rondo took 22 shots and missed 15 of them. He had 12 assists, but six turnovers.

Like every game in this series, it could have very easily gone the other way, but apologies are for the losing side and neither the Celtics nor Rondo had to offer them after a 90-84 overtime victory over Atlanta in Game 3 of their first round playoff series.

“I felt good about all the shots I took. I took a lot,” Rondo said. “My teammates told me to stay aggressive. I missed a lot of easy layups, but the jump shots I usually try to take at the mid-range game. I accomplished them. I took them. But I missed them. There’s going to be nights like tonight where I miss a lot of shots, but I try to continue to fight through it, continue to grind and get the win for my team.” 

Doc Rivers wasn’t sure what Rondo would do in his first game back from his suspension. Would he be too aggressive? Would he try too hard to fit in? Rivers didn’t know, but mostly he just wanted Rondo to be Rondo, whatever that truly means.

He told him to score. Rondo said he thought the coach wanted him to run their stuff. Rivers said do that, but be aggressive. A tenuous balance was struck. He started slowly with just two points, two rebounds and four assists in the first half. Then suddenly he became Rondo again. He drove, dished and crashed the glass.

On one memorable play, he broke through the Atlanta defense with an artful spin and despite a clear lane to the basket, he flipped an oh-no-he-didn’t pass to Paul Pierce on the wing for a 3-pointer. Pierce’s shot was true, and as always with Rondo, as long as the ends justify the means, then it all works out in the end.

“In that play in particular, the floor was spaced, we were in transition and I think I attacked [Jannero] Pargo and then I saw Paul out of the corner of my eye,” Rondo said. “Usually Paul and Ray [Allen], when I penetrate [they] usually sink to the corners. That’s just a matter of guys playing together for a long time.”

Only Rondo can take a simple game situation, run it through his personal blender of strange, and come out with an unexpected result that he had in the back of his mind the whole time.

“Swag, that’s what we call him around here,” Kevin Garnett said. “Swag. The young boy got a lot of swag. It was good to see him in the building. Good to see him in practice. The kid’s still learning, still getting better.” 

It’s crazy, right? It’s crazy that Rondo is still getting better, still learning and yet also capable of recording triple doubles like they were nothing. He has seven of them in the postseason during his career. Most of them have been dominating tour de forces. This one was more like a happy accident.

That also describes the position the Celtics find themselves three game into a playoff season that is unfortunately just as much a battle of attrition as the regular season. Avery Bradley left with a sore left shoulder that has bothered him during the second half of the season. Allen played 36 minutes in his game in almost a month and told WEEI’s postgame show that he felt like his ankle was on fire.

At least the Celtics had all their players to start the game. The Hawks played without Josh Smith, Al Horford and Zaza Pachulia, their three best frontline players. In their place, Larry Drew used the likes of Dampier and Jason Collins and a small lineup that gave the Celtics problems. Not on the scoreboard, necessarily, but in the matchup department.

Usually, Rivers likes to go small to make other teams uncomfortable but in this series he has to scramble to mix personnel and that led to another 42-minute night for Garnett, as well as 47 for Pierce and 48 for Rondo.

“The way my body feels right now I feel like I went 40-40-40,” Garnett said as opposed to the 5-5-5 plan Rivers has used to preserve his most precious asset.

“Too many minutes,” Rivers said. “I got stuck with Kevin, honestly. Usually I take him out at the six-minute mark in the fourth.”

Instead, Rivers gambled and left his players on the floor in the hopes they could close it out. It backfired. The Hawks rallied from 11 points down and forced the overtime. Atlanta actually had two chances to take the lead in the final minute but the Celtics’ defense held firm. They blitzed Joe Johnson and forced Willie Green of all people to take a jumper. Like 102 other shots in this game, Green’s missed.

“For the most part when we had to make defensive stands we really stood in there and grinded it out,” Garnett said. “I don’t think we shot the ball very well or even played really well offensively, but from a defensive standpoint we were all clicking. That’s what carried us.”

They have played six games and two overtimes against the Hawks this season and the Celtics have now outscored Atlanta, 509-505. It’s beyond useless to try and make sense of anything in this series anymore, other than each game will be close and a struggle to the very end.

The Celtics forgot to play defense in the first quarter of Game 1. Rondo got suspended and they still won Game 2. Smith was on the sidelines in Game 3 and it was just as tough without Atlanta’s best player. Pierce missed nine of 12 shots and took one less free throw than the Hawks did as a team. Garnett went for 20 and 13 and Rivers still isn’t happy about where he’s getting the ball. Rondo had a triple double that was not as good as the sum of his stats.

But all that’s behind them now. They got the win and in the playoffs that’s all that matters.