The Eastern Conference is more jumbled than afternoon Neponset Circle traffic trying to get into Boston when they create that HOV lane.
As of right now, 5.5 games separate the top-seeded, 16-7 Brooklyn Nets and the 12th-seed, 11-13 Toronto Raptors. Only three teams (Indiana, Orlando, and Detroit) have winning percentages of .360 or lower, and of them, the 9-16 Pacers are a theoretical win streak from making play-in tournament noise.
As up and down and frustrating as the Celtics may have been to this point of the young season, the rest of the conference is doing them a favor by largely remaining stagnant standings-wise. The Chicago Bulls, now second in the East, have the conference’s longest winning streak at only three games. The Raptors two-straight wins are the East’s only other current winning streak. Outside of the bottom three teams, there are only three losing streaks and the longest is New York’s three-game skid.
Over the weekend, Charlotte beat Atlanta, Toronto beat Washington, Denver beat New York, Milwaukee beat Miami, Utah beat Cleveland, and Chicago beat Brooklyn. Every team above Boston either lost, or beat another team above Boston to further tighten the standings while two teams chasing the Celtics lost.
And while it is way too early to watch the standings for playoff positioning purposes, it’s absolutely appropriate to watch them to see how the Celtics have stayed afloat and, somehow, within striking distance
“It’s something we really don’t talk to the team about, but we see that,” Ime Udoka said after the team’s Monday practice in Los Angeles. “You win some of those games where you had 19-point leads on Chicago and Cleveland, or bad start against San Antonio or whatever it may be, and you’re right up in the top of the standings with teams that are having career years.”
Flip those three games alone and Boston very easily could be 16-8. And considering that would also make Chicago 15-9 instead of also 16-8, Boston could be second in the East right now with only minimal differences to how they’ve been playing.
That's both a testament to how tight things are in the East and the Celtics maybe not being in as dire a situation as some have made them out to be.
“We're nowhere where we want to be with the results record-wise, but it’s still encouraging” Marcus Smart said. “At any given moment, we're going to go on a run and then things are going to change for us. So we just gotta continue to play the game the right way, like we've been playing, and just continue to trust one another.”
This is about the point of the season when teams are starting to truly find their identities. Indicators of who is truly good and who isn’t are starting to show themselves. The Bulls, for example, have proven themselves to be pretty good and not some fluke. They have the conference’s best point differential and questions about fit have been largely answered.
The Wizards may be heading in the other direction. The early-season surprise is now 14-10, but 4-7 in their last 11 games. They're fifth in the East, but they have a negative point differential that matches more closely to teams on the play-in side of the standings.
That's not to say that the Bulls can’t slide (especially with DeMar DeRozan going into COVID protocols) and the Wizards can’t turn it around, but water seems to be finding its level to some degree.
We never really had a firm grasp on what that level was for the Celtics. They have indicators that clear up very little. Their +2.4 point differential is sixth-best in the East. Their defensive rating is ninth in the league and fifth in the conference, and they're seventh in net rating.
Thanks to no one getting any separation to this point, the Celtics have survived some of their extenuating circumstances. They're 13-11 and struggling to some degree to stay afloat, but so are nine other teams.
There are very legitimate concerns about this team. Their offense is very Jayson Tatum-dependent and inconsistent. They have been really good defensively but have had some bad habits sneak in from time to time. And guys have missed a lot of games already. Just because the rest of the conference is doing Boston a solid by keeping the pack tight, it doesn’t mean the Celtic are guaranteed to pounce on the opportunity.
But the opportunity is still there as we get closer to what many consider the real green flag that starts this race on Christmas Day.
“My big thing is stay the course and look at the big picture, because we’re not far behind,” Udoka said. “We have started to hit our stride defensively early and offensively lately, so staying the course, with the early part of the season being an extension of training camp with the new guys being out, new coaching staff and new terminology - it’s a credit to our guys to keep playing through the things and only be a few games out, we feel we have a lot of room for improvement, so that’s definitely a positive.”