Look, I don’t support scoreboard watching. But we’re all going to do it anyway, so let’s have the talk now and be safe about it.
I’m a big believer in superstitions, which means I feel like I’ve participated in every Celtics game I watch. Like most supernatural beliefs, that’s obviously lunacy, but the wheels really fall off when we get to the final week of the regular season, and I begin trying to manipulate seeding to give the Celtics the easiest path through the Eastern Conference.
This is also known as scoreboard watching. It’s a brilliant exercise in driving yourself nuts, considering one cannot control nor even usually understand the specific tiebreaker situations, merely left to craft their perfect set of outcomes and then cross all fingers and toes. It rarely works and almost never matters, but when left with nothing else to root for down the stretch, it’s perfectly normal.
Sometimes, scoreboard watching goes exactly how you want it to. In 2022, the Celtics maintained the number two seed, unafraid of the Kyrie Irving/Kevin Durant-laden Brooklyn Nets they would end up sweeping. At least in my circles, we were thrilled that the Bucks made no effort to snag the second seed, affording us home court advantage in a potential second round series. And then that home court advantage became the Grant Williams game, and all was well and dandy.
Other times—and probably more often—scoreboard watching goes horribly wrong. Last year, parked in the two seed and awaiting the results of the Play-In Tournament, these same circles of Celtics fans and I rejoiced as the Hawks defeated the the Heat in the 7 vs 8 matchup, loosing the Celtics on a much tamer Atlanta team and sicking Miami on the Bucks, which all wound up working.
But that rejoicing could only hold so much weight, as the Miami team whose downfall I delighted in came back and handed the Celtics their most embarrassing series loss of my lifetime. It was all fun and games until it wasn’t, and that’s why I’ve devoted my time and energy to making sure Celtics fans scoreboard watch safely and with the proper precautions.
Proper form consists of creating theoretical Eastern Conference playoff pictures based on rational thinking and planning, and then ranking them based on which one would release the most dopamine in your brain. And just to be sure, I took the liberty of running a preliminary set of outcomes just for the sake of things. You know… just to demonstrate.
Best Outcome (possible as of April 10):
This is a glorious set-up. Not only does it see the Celtics playing the Chicago Bulls—a team that cannot, should not, and (knocks on wood) will not beat Boston in a playoff series—it has every single tidbit neatly lined up for a comfort cruise to the NBA Finals. I am going to regret writing all of that.
In any case, in addition to putting the ever-intimidating Heat out to pasture in the Play-In game, this orientation makes the Celtics’ theoretical path through the East look like the biggest joke of all time:
1st Round: Bulls
2nd Round: Pacers/Magic
Conference Finals: Whoever emerges from the destructive quagmire of Bucks/Knicks/76ers/Cavaliers
The Pacers are a shell of the team that beat the Celtics in the In-Season Tournament, and are so incapable of playing defense that their playoff chances are… slim. The Magic can’t score in the fourth quarter to save their lives, sitting at 24th in Clutch offensive rating.
The Bulls are just happy to be here, and both the prospective second round teams are fun stories without any logical chance of threatening the Celtics. Of course, there’s always the chance that something wholly illogical happens. Caleb Martin is behind me, isn’t he?
Generally, you’re never going to be able to dodge every scary team, but you can make hope they all beat the hell out of each other before ever making it to you. Once we’ve filed the Heat away in their proper cabinet and realized the Cavaliers already have one foot in Barbados, priority number two is about seeing how tired and screwed up the 76ers, Bucks, and Knicks can get before reaching the Conference Finals.
The Knicks shouldn’t be an issue to tire out. Head Coach Tom Thibodeau will almost certainly play whatever six guys he decides can function in the playoffs an average of 46.5 minutes per game, and hopefully those guys will drag whichever of the 76ers and Bucks make it out of their first round series down with them.
Of course, that line of reasoning did nothing to save the Celtics from the Heat last year, who just finished a series against the Knicks and proceeded to shoot the lights out more than a madman with a machine gun hell-bent on destroying every lightbulb in existence. But just because something illogical happened doesn’t mean we have to give up on the rule of logic. Otherwise, the world is just an uncontrollable cesspool of horror and destruction. (stares directly at camera)
Out of respect to the history of the NBA, I won’t be entertaining the possibility of Joel Embiid and the 76ers making it out of the second round. But depending on the severity of Giannis Antetokounmpo’s calf strain, the Milwaukee Bucks might, so how bad would that be?
Probably as bad as it could get, as the Bucks are the lone Eastern Conference team that would actually have the best player in the series against Boston. Not to mention the prospect of messing around in a playoff shoot-out with Damian Lillard is about as enticing as dipping Twizzlers in guacamole. Might do it for some people, but that’s not for me.
On the flip side, the Bucks had been capital-T-terrible for three straight games before beating the Celtics, losing to the holy trinity of we’re-literally-trying-to-lose-I-don’t-know-if-you-got-the-memo in Memphis, Toronto, and Washington.
The Celtics and Bucks have cleanly split the season series, but all but one game had some sort of asterisk on it. Honestly, I have no idea how a series against the Bucks will go. For the purposes of full transparency, I’m just going to move on.
Now we come to the self-destructive part of the exercise: trying to make the standings as bad as humanly possible. I want to preface this by saying that this outcome is unfathomably, hilariously, possibly even sarcastically unlikely to happen. But here’s what the apocalypse looks like.
Worst Outcome (possible as of April 10):
- Celtics
- Magic
- Knicks
- Bucks
- 76ers
- Cavaliers
- Pacers
- Heat
This is an unmitigated disaster. Not only are the Celtics staring down the most rested Jimmy Butler of all-time in round one—who will go on TNT at least three times before the series starts and guarantee a win—the Bucks and 76ers are sitting there as a tasty treat in round two should everyone even make it out of the first round alive.
Let me be 100 percent clear. The Heat cannot beat the Celtics, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. The Celtics have been so much better for five straight months it seems almost unserious to even consider this a risk. But the Heat do not operate within the realm of observed reality: they operate in the Twilight Zone, where the Celtics 65-win season can go to die. (Stares directly at the camera, this time with a tear slowly sliding down his left cheek)
I’m not particularly scared of the Bucks or 76ers either, but I know they are capable of beating the Celtics in a playoff series. The Celtics have never lost to Philadelphia in the playoffs in the Tatum-Brown era, but they have gotten terrifyingly close a couple of times. I’ve already said my bit on Milwaukee, and the second round just makes everything riskier and more complex.
You’d think the lone silver lining here is how this orientation front-loads the challenges of the playoffs and turns the Conference Finals into an easy break, right? Wrong. This is exactly what happened last year, where you think all is well as that you’ve been dealt pocket aces in the ECF and then WHAM all your dreams have been crushed. (Stares dir—I’m just kidding… I hope.
This setup also exposes the oddity of the NBA not reseeding its playoffs. The fact that the Celtics would have to play the 4 or 5 seed regardless of if Orlando or Indiana wins the 2 vs 7 matchup is a bit silly, and makes you wonder if the higher seed should be able to select their second round opponent in some sort of draft format.
One final point before we all go shudder in the nightmares of option two or blissfully enjoy the lovely option one: how would this all actually happen? Well, I can promise you this is all possible as of April 10, but beyond that I’m not actually sure.
If someone has invented a “put in your preferred playoff standings and this site will show you the exact path to that” website yet, please let me know in the comments. Otherwise, check out this playoff machine if you want to painstakingly craft your own outcomes of the last few games.
If not, join me in crossing your fingers, toes, and probably tongue for good measure. You can never be too careful this time of year.
