Monday Morning Quarterbacking, following a sports smorgasbord of a weekend …

•Well, whoop-dee-do, the Celtics finally polished off the Hawks. Pardon me if I’m not all a-twitter about Boston’s blowout win yesterday afternoon in Game Seven. It’s hard to get excited about the championship chances of a veteran team that couldn’t win a game in Atlanta against a young club that was 37-45 during the regular season. In a better world, teams that finish under .500 wouldn’t qualify for the playoffs. The fact the Celts had to go the distance in their opening series is discouraging for fans hoping to see a 17th championship banner added to the Garden rafters after a 22-year drought.

•What is encouraging was the second straight strong effort turned in by Red Sox lefty Jon Lester, who gave up just four hits and one run in six innings of yesterday’s 7-3 win over Tampa as Boston completed a three-game sweep of the Rays. That quality start came on the heels of an impressive, 8-inning, 1-hit outing against Toronto last Tuesday.

Lester had been shaky in his two prior starts, allowing 19 hits in 11 innings against the Rangers and Angels. And, in the two starts before that pair, he walked 9 batters in 9 innings against Cleveland and Detroit.

•Considering that the Patriots’ last two playoff losses — in Super Bowl XLII to the Giants, and the 2006 AFC Championship Game at Indianapolis — came because they couldn’t stop either of the Manning brothers from leading long drives to winning touchdowns, the addition of Dom Capers to the coaching staff could be as important to the New England defense as those young linebackers and cornerbacks the Pats just picked up in the draft.

Capers has been coaching in the NFL for 22 seasons — 16 of them as either a head coach or a defensive coordinator. He had his greatest success with the expansion Carolina Panthers, taking them to the NFC Championship Game in 1996. Capers was head coach in Carolina for four seasons, and also was head coach of the expansion Houston Texans from 2001 through 2005. He’s spent the last two seasons with Miami, as the Dolphins’ defensive coordinator.

Capers has said his primary role this season will be coaching the secondary, but added: “Anything else I can contribute, I’ll be more than happy to do.”

Having coached two expansion teams, Capers is delighted to be with a talented team like the Patriots.

“I’m the only coach in the history of the league,” he said, “to start two expansion teams from scratch, so I know what the feeling is like when you have to go out on that field and your talent is not quite up to your competition’s.

“During the nine years I was a head coach, I was always fighting an uphill battle in terms of trying to get the kind of talent you need to have success. I’m excited about joining a team that’s had the success they’ve had.”

The biggest challenge the Patriots face in the secondary is replacing cornerback Asante Samuel, who signed with the Eagles after intercepting 16 passes over the last two seasons, plus three more in the postseason — two of which he returned for touchdowns.

While the leading candidate to fill Samuel’s spot is free agent Fernando Bryant, the Pats have also signed two other FA’s, Lewis Sanders and Jason Webster, and added a couple of draft picks — Terrence Wheatley in the second round and Jonathan Wilhite in the fourth.

•It’s hard to imagine an Ivy League co-champion — especially one that’s won 10 of its last 11 games — not getting an at-large bid to the NCAA lacrosse tournament, but that’s what could happen to Brown, which defeated Princeton, 6-5, Saturday to gain a share of the league title with Cornell.

While the Big Red will get the Ivy’s automatic berth by virtue of having beaten the Bears, 11-7, Brown is sitting very much on the bubble while hoping to get into the tournament for the first time since 1997.

The problem is that the Bears’ win over the Tigers is the only one they have over a team ranked in the top 20 in the coaches’ poll. Nor does it help that Brown played just two other current top-20 teams — No. 8 Cornell and No. 20 Denver — and lost to both, so strength of schedule is an issue.

The Final Four is being played this year just up Route 95 in Foxboro, at Gillette Stadium, over the Memorial Day weekend.

Regardless of whether Brown gets a bid, second-year coach Lars Tiffany has done a remarkable rebuilding job at his alma mater, as the Bears were 0-6 against the Ivies in Scott Nelson’s last season as coach in 2006 and just 1-5 last year.

•Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown was every bit as good as his trainer, Richard Dutrow Jr., said he was, and better than I thought he was, even though I’d seen his dazzling win in the Florida Derby. It’s hard to see him losing the Preakness two weeks from now at Pimlico, where speed is even more of a premium on the tighter turns at the Baltimore track. Another win there would make Big Brown 5-for-5 lifetime, and set up a Triple Crown bid in the Belmont on June 7. There hasn’t been a Triple Crown winner in 30 years, since Affirmed, with young Steve Cauthen aboard, outgamed Alydar in all three of the classic races for 3-year-olds in 1978.

•The current issue of Travel and Leisure Golf magazine contains an illustrated article on “Summer in Rhode Island” that describes the delights of some of the state’s classic, Donald Ross-designed courses, including Rhode Island Country Club, Wannamoisett, Metacomet, Point Judith, Newport and Sakonnet, in Little Compton, where Ross summered for many years. Also mentioned, although they aren’t Ross courses, are Carnegie Abbey, and Shelter Harbor. Other Rhode Island courses where Ross displayed his designing brilliance are Agawam Hunt, Misquamicut, Triggs, Warwick Country Club and Winnapaug, in Westerly.

•These are not the best of times for Rhode Island’s representatives on the PGA Tour. Brett Quigley and Billy Andrade both missed the cut at the Wachovia Championship this weekend in Charlotte. Andrade, who was coming off a year’s-best, T14 finish at Hilton Head, has made only three cuts in 10 events this year. Neither he nor Quigley is among the top 150 on the money list. At this point, only Patrick Sheehan is among the top 125 earners, which is the cutoff for retaining full playing privileges on the Tour. It was good to see Tour rookie Brad Adamonis, who’s been ailing, finish among the top 50 in the Wachovia after missing three consecutive cuts following a month of inactivity.

The Wachovia winner, Anthony Kim, won the Northeast Amateur at Wannamoisett in 2004, when he was a collegiate star at Oklahoma. The victory in Charlotte is his first on the PGA Tour.

jdonalds@projo.com