The Boston Celtics should put all their effort into attaining the second seed in the Eastern Conference during these final eight regular-season games.
With the days dwindling down in preparation for July 30th, Boston Celtics fans are chomping at the bit to see their favorite team take the hardwood once again to continue on their quest to attain banner number 18.
As we all know, the 2019-20 season was hit by an unforeseen hiatus on March 11th in response to the novel coronavirus making its way into the league — Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert was the first player to be diagnosed with the virus on that fateful day.
Now, after three-plus months of leave, the stars have finally aligned and we fans can now get set and look forward to more NBA action in the coming weeks, as play is expected to resume at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Disney World.
The plan is for each of the 22 eligible teams to play eight “seeding” exhibition games to determine conference standings. The postseason would then commence as usual, with the standard best-of-seven format.
When the season initially came to a halt, the Boston Celtics proved themselves to be one of the best teams, not just in the east, but in the entire association. With a record of 43-21, Boston found themselves seeded third in their conference’s standings, fifth in the league’s standings, and, with their victory over the Indiana Pacers on March 10th, were officially headed to their sixth straight postseason.
If the season were to have jumped right into the playoffs like numerous initial proposals had suggested, heading into this impending return the shamrocks would be looking at a first-round matchup with the 39-26 Philadelphia 76ers (sixth in the Eastern Conference).
However, due to the approval of having eight regular-season games, positions within the standings are still very much up for grabs which, in turn, might wind up helping the Cs.
As mentioned earlier, the Celtics were having quite a successful campaign in 2019-20 before the league suspension. Unfortunately, that success wasn’t exactly on display during their bouts against Philly.
Through their four-game regular-season series, the Sixers wound up beating Boston by a record of 3-1.
Proving susceptible to their towering lineup while also struggling to find any consistency offensively, the Celtics, for the better part of the series, looked completely outmatched.
Being bested in the rebounding (205 vs 154) and blocks (23 vs 12) departments while also losing the scoring efficiency battle (Philly shot 45 percent from the field & 33 percent from deep while Cs shot 43 percent & 32 percent from 3) it was apparent that Boston seemed to have their work cut out for them on both ends of the floor.
Now, with the well-hypothesized theory that play could be a bit sloppy once teams return to action, players will likely look to perform using more of a rough-and-tough/ bully-ball style of game, forcing their way into the paint for buckets rather than rely on their out-of-rhythm shooting strokes from mid-to-long-range.
At least, to start out the return.
With this in mind, a team like Philadelphia, whos starting lineup during the season oft consisted of no players under 6-5, two players in the 6-10 range and a legitimate seven-footer, would have quite an advantage against this current small-ball era of basketball — this holds true even against a team as talented as the Celtics.
Currently, the team’s main anchor down-low/ rim protector is the 6-9 Daniel Theis. While he has had a solid season thus far in his new role as Boston’s starting center — 9.3 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks per game — having him as your main safety blanket against such a physically dominating unit after such a long time away from in-game action — regardless of how well he played in their last outing against the 76ers — is not the best recipe for success.
If the Celtics were to stay in the third seed come playoff time, it is more than likely that their first-round matchup would be Philadelphia. However, like we said earlier, positions within the standings are still up for grabs.
For the Boston Celtics, this means that they still have a very real shot of rising in the rankings to steal the second seed in the Eastern Conference from the defending champion, Toronto Raptors.
No, there is no home-court advantage that comes with seedings this season, as all teams will be playing on neutral ground at Disney. However, like usual, different rankings translate into different matchups come the postseason and, currently speaking, the second seed is slated to play against the injury-riddled Brooklyn Nets.
If they were to end up making the 2020 postseason, the Kevin Durant/ Kyrie Irving-less Nets will be led by a main unit consisting of Spencer Dinwiddie, Caris LeVert, and Jarrett Allen who, while they are talented players in their own right, are not likely to be enough to make a serious run against any of this year’s top-tier teams and, in turn, would be a much easier matchup for a team coming back from as long of a hiatus as this.
Also realistically in the running for the seventh-seed is the Orlando Magic who, while they too have talented ballers (Nikola Vucevic, Aaron Gordon, Terrence Ross, etc.), are a team Boston proved more than capable of handling during the regular season — won by double-figures in both matchups — and, thus, would likely be a much easier team to face as a first-round opponent than the 76ers.
Don’t get us wrong, this is not to say that if the C’s were to face Philly in the first round, they wouldn’t have a realistic shot at coming out of the series victorious. Their last outing against each other should certainly be an indicator that they have the tools necessary to do this — Celtics beat the Sixers handsomely by a score of 116-95.
This is, however, to say that going up against a team such as the Nets or the Magic would be a much more desirable matchup as Boston tries to get back into the swing of things. A simple way of making this a reality is pushing to attain the second seed in the east.
During these upcoming final eight regular-season games, the Boston Celtics should make this one of their main goals prior to the start of the postseason.