Robb: Celtics' schedule looks unforgiving if they can't right ship quickly

The Celtics are a work in progress right now, and that’s no surprise to anyone who has watched the team for the last month. After a lackluster preseason, the cohesion just hasn’t been there consistently through the team’s first four regular season games. Whether it’s been offensive slumps, communication issues or lackluster shot selection, the defense has kept them in games over the course of a 2-2 start.

"We are going to get every team's best shot every night," Terry Rozier said this week. "Like I said, when you turn on the TV, we are one of the few teams that everyone is talking about, whether it's in a negative or a positive way. We are in the limelight and every team wants to beat us, we have to understand that.

From a big picture perspective, a 2-2 start really shouldn’t matter. It’s not a big deal for a team that knew it would take some lumps early while integrating key pieces back into the fold. No one is going to remember their October struggles if this group is running on all cylinders by the time April and May roll around.

Still, one look around the Eastern Conference shows the margin of error for the top seed in the East might not be as wide as originally anticipated.

The Raptors have answered question marks early by soaring out to a 5-0 start behind the stellar play of Kawhi Leonard. He looks healthy, Danny Green has found his 3-point shooting touch again and Serge Ibaka’s transition to the 5 has gone extremely well. Most of their early schedule has been home friendly (4-0) with a couple signature wins over the C’s and on the road over the Wizards without Leonard.

The Bucks have been just as impressive under new head coach Mike Budenholtzer. Fueled by a new emphasis on taking 3s from all over the floor with a better supporting cast of bigs (i.e. Brook Lopez and Ersan Ilyasova), the Bucks’ offense has been a machine (7th in offensive rating). The biggest surprise might be their defensive improvement thus far (sixth in defensive rating). They are 4-0 with a couple of nice wins over the Sixers and Pacers.

Falling behind both of these teams by a couple games is no big deal for now. The problem for the C’s lies within their upcoming schedule. If they don’t figure things out in a hurry, it could be a far stiffer uphill climb for them to land a top-2 seed in the Eastern Conference.

Take a closer look at the upcoming schedule:

@ Oklahoma City (0-3)
@ Detroit (3-0)
Vs. Detroit (3-0)
Vs. Milwaukee (4-0)
@ Indiana (3-2)
@ Denver (4-0)
@ Phoenix (1-3)
@ Utah (2-2)
@ Portland (2-1)

There are no easy wins on that slate outside of a trip to Phoenix. The Thunder lost two of those three games without Westbrook, and that Thunder team will be desperate for a win tonight in Oklahoma City. The Pistons have been solid out of the gate behind the resurgence of Blake Griffin, and with Aron Baynes questionable for those matchups, containing Andre Drummond on the glass will be a handful. The Pacers and Nuggets are two above-average playoff teams. The Jazz and Blazers are expected to be 50-win teams in a brutal Western Conference. The Celtics might only go 5-4 during this stretch even if they were playing good basketball on both ends.

Staying around the .500 mark through a tough month of November might be a requirement in order to keep the Raptors and Bucks within striking distance of the No. 1 seed. We all saw the importance of home court advantage during the postseason last year (except for Game 7 of Eastern Conference Finals), and those road scoring woes seem unlikely to dissipate against tougher foes this year.

Going through some adversity early isn’t a bad thing for the Celtics, but if the Raptors or Bucks continue rolling, this team is going to face a four or five-game deficit in the standings by the time Thanksgiving hits. That’s not an insurmountable gap but it’s certainly a challenging one with the C’s in an early hole in the head-to-head battle.

The bottom line? The window for the C’s to figure things out on the fly without serious repercussions in the standings is fading. There are no more gimmes (or should-be gimmes) like the Knicks or Magic on the schedule for the next month. Road games against fresh hungry teams out West are looming, along with a couple of top-4 teams in the East. The Celtics need to figure things out in a hurry or they might be climbing out of a big hole in the Eastern Conference standings in a few weeks.