With the playoffs right around the corner, almost everything is shaping up pretty wonderfully for the Boston Celtics. The C’s, who have seven fewer losses than the NBA’s next best team (the reigning champion Denver Nuggets), have had a nearly flawless season. They have the #1 offensive rating and the #2 defensive rating in the league, and they’ve done so while incorporating Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday – two former All-Stars – into an already solid core of the Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, and Al Horford. All of the stars have learned to coexist on the floor together, and every single starter has willingly sacrificed for the betterment of the team.
Everybody has seemingly bought in. Most importantly, though, Boston should be fully healthy (knock on wood) heading into the playoffs. Perfect situation, right?
In addition to the Celtics’ successes this season, the Eastern Conference has been weak –there’s just no other way to say it. According to DraftKings, of the top 9 NBA teams with the best odds to win the championship this season, only three teams – the Celtics, Bucks and Sixers – reside in the East. And, Milwaukee isn’t exactly playing their best basketball as of late; they’ve lost four of their last six games, three of which were to the Wizards, Grizzlies and Raptors – some of the NBA’s worst. Lillard looks like he’s lost a step, and the impenetrable backline of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Brook Lopez hasn’t been enough to compensate for the terrible point of attack defense of Beasley, Lillard and whoever else Milwaukee throws out there. Oh, and now the Greek Freak is battling a calf injury… as if things couldn’t get worse for them. I’m not too worried about the Bucks, quite frankly.
You know who does worry me in the East, though? Two teams. One is the Miami Heat, who Boston lost to last year in the Eastern Conference Finals. And the other is the 76ers, who blew a 3-2 lead against the Celtics last year in the conference semifinals, but who (when healthy) have looked more dangerous than a season ago.
And what’s the Celtics reward for having the best regular season winning percentage of an NBA team in the past five years? Well, it might be facing the Heat or the 76ers in the first round.
Thank you so much, basketball gods! If the regular season ended today, Boston would have a 50% chance of facing either Miami or Philadelphia in the first round. And, in reality, it’s probably higher than that, because I don’t see either of those teams losing to Chicago or Atlanta in a second play-in game. At least the basketball gods did the Bucks a little bit dirtier than us; Milwaukee would have a 100% chance of facing either the Heat or the Sixers if the regular season ended today. Rough draw.
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As long as Jimmy Butler and Erik Spoelstra are on the Miami sideline, I’m fearful of the Heat. We don’t need to see Jimmy morph into prime Michael Jordan again once the playoffs come around to believe it’s for real. He’s going to do it like he always does. He rests during the regular season, and then he becomes one of the five to 10 best players in the NBA once winning really matters. It’s like clockwork. The addition of Terry Rozier also scares me quite a bit. I don’t like that he’ll have an extra chip on his shoulder because the Celtics traded him a while back. I already have a vision of him going off for 40 against us, hitting tough shot after tough shot. It’s just what the Heat do. It was Caleb Martin last year, but it’ll be someone else this year.
Someone will step up and become a primary playmaker or a go-to scorer once winning time commences. No matter who they have filling out the roster, the coaching of Spoelstra and the leadership of Butler make Miami a daunting first round matchup. They’ve been overmatched against the Celtics and have won before (need I remind you of last year), and they can do it again.
And then there’s the Sixers. It’s like people forget that Boston was down 3-2 last year to Philly. There’s this assumption that Embiid and the Sixers have some sort of mental block against this Celtics core, but they get closer to knocking them out every year. And in a year where Embiid looked as happy to be in a Sixers uniform as I’ve seen him, I do not want to face them early on.
Now, obviously Joel hasn’t looked the same since coming back from his MCL injury. However, he could absolutely be waiting to let loose and go full throttle once the playoffs start. He’s appeared a bit hesitant in using his physicality and muscle in the few games that he’s beenback, but I assume that’ll change once winning time commences.
The silver lining is that perhaps a first round matchup against Miami or Philadelphia will kick the Celtics into gear in a similar way that the Brooklyn Nets did to Boston in the 2022 playoffs. Despite the 4-0 sweep of the Nets two years ago, Brooklyn forced the Celtics to be focused and locked in from the start, which paid dividends in future rounds. So, if Boston is faced with either Miami or Philly in the first round, hopefully they can channel their intensity from the start and replicate what they did in 2022, this time with a Finals win.
