This isn’t the Eastern Conference of year’s past in 2019-20. No longer is it the “Leastern Conference”, and the Boston Celtics are part of the reason why. Where does their top duo rank with the others in the playoff picture in the east?
Much of the success of the 2019-20 Boston Celtics can be attributed to the team’s best five players. While injuries have caused the quintet of Gordon Hayward, Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum and Kemba Walker to play limited minutes as a unit, the Cs have been able to band together and come away with a top-three record in the east.
The latter duo of that group, Walker and Tatum, has emerged as an explosive offensive All-Star pair this season. Tatum’s historic February gave way to one of the league’s top records heading into and coming out of the All-Star break.
Now, during this final stretch-run, Boston finds themselves — not just with a top record in their respective conference — but in the entire NBA. At 43-19, the shamrocks find themselves with the fifth-best record in the association.
They’re not alone at the top, though. Milwaukee has been the league’s biggest problem, losing single-digit games thus far. The defending NBA Champion Toronto Raptors have been thriving, not just surviving, in the aftermath of Kawhi Leonard‘s departure this past summer. Both teams are ahead of the Cs in the standings, and the two teams behind Boston — the Miami Heat and Philadelphia 76ers — both also boast All-Star duos.
The Houdini is here to rank the duos from the top seeds in the Eastern Conference: