Boston Celtics: 3 bold Houdini predictions for Cs in 2020-21

Boston Celtics bold prediction No. 3) Cs finish year outside of top-5 in East

Over the past several seasons, the Boston Celtics have consistently been one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference, finishing within the top-5 in the standings for five straight seasons.

In 2020-21, we believe this streak will come to its end.

Our prediction is based on two very specific reasons.

First, it’s linked to our initial slide in this article, as we envision the shamrocks will get off to an undesirable start without Kemba Walker in tow.

Like we stated, nine of their first 10 opponents were in the NBA Bubble last season — five of which were playoff teams — and nine of these outings will be against conference foes.

Perhaps the biggest reason as to why we predict a finish outside the top-5 for Boston is based on the fact that, while they come into the year hobbled and undermanned in comparison to 2019-20, many of their East enemies seemingly managed to get even better.

Sure, we expect the Milwaukee Bucks to be in a similar position in the standings to where they were last year, but with Brooklyn getting a healthy Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, the Washington Wizards bringing on Russell Westbrook to join forces with Bradley Beal, and the Atlanta Hawks having added several talented pieces to help better surround Trae Young and John Collins, there are three teams just off the top of our heads that will be competing for such highly-coveted placements.

What’s crazier is, this is all without even bringing up the defending Eastern Conference champions in the Miami Heat and the now healthy Philadelphia 76ers who Ben Simmons back and, frankly, got even better this offseason as they managed to acquire stellar floor spacers in Seth Curry and Danny Green, all while riding themselves of Al Horford’s contract.

All this said, however, it also must be stated that we still view the Boston Celtics as a title contender in 2020-21 and, in turn, envision them as being a very good team come season’s end.

This prediction is heavily based on the belief that the East has gotten a lot better this offseason and, with a slow start to the year — which we believe they will have — those losses could be all that is needed to separate the conference’s third seed from the sixth seed.

We believe the standings will be tightly contested throughout the season. A mere two-loss difference could wind up keeping the Celtics outside of the top-5 out East.