There are only four games left to play in the regular season for the Boston Celtics. And while their seed has long-been determined, their path to a potential championship is nowhere close to being determined.
Let’s take another look at how things are looking.
The 9/10 matchup is set. Chicago and Atlanta will face each other with the loser being eliminated and the winner going on to face the loser of the 7/8 game for the eighth seed. The only thing left to determine between the Hawks and Bulls is home court.
The 7/8 game is still very much up in the air. Technically speaking, any team after Milwaukee can still fall into the play-in tournament. Orlando, the current third seed, is 2.5 games out of the play-in with four games to play, so losing three of four would put them in jeopardy of falling down to seventh.
The Magic face Houston, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia on the road and then Milwaukee again at home to close out the regular season, so they still have work to do. Houston is fighting to finish with a .500 record or better, so they’ll be working hard in that game. Milwaukee’s trying to get right, and the Sixers are trying to get out of the play-in. It won’t be easy for Orlando.
Side note: Orlando also has a strong chance at the second seed because they're only one game behind Milwaukee with two head-to-head matchups against them.
The Knicks are tied with Orlando at 46-32 and close at Chicago, at Boston, and home to Brooklyn and Chicago again. The Celtics will definitely be resting players, so the Knicks have a chance, even with their injuries, to get to 50 wins and move out of the 4/5 matchup and away from the Celtics side of the bracket.
Cleveland is fifth at 46-33, with three games left to play at home. Facing Memphis, Indiana, and Charlotte gives them a chance at two wins, but the Pacers will likely be the determining factor in their seeding. Cleveland is a game ahead but a Pacers win closes that gap and gives Indy the tiebreaker. The question here is would the Cavs tank out of the fifth spot to get out of the Boston side of the bracket and take their chances of getting to the Conference Finals another way? They have to be careful, though, because they're two games out of seventh, and they don’t want to fall out of the top six.
The Pacers also have three games left, with a trip to Toronto and a home game against Atlanta to close the season. They will certainly be trying to win because they're being chased by the Sixers, who are now only a game behind. Indy has two winnable games and the tiebreaker against the Sixers, so they can afford to go 2-1 even if Philly goes 3-0.
The Sixers are surging. They're in seventh but they are tied with Boston for the league’s longest winning streak (five games). They close with Detroit, Orlando, and Brooklyn, all at home. If they win out, there's a chance they can jump someone in the standings, but they’ve lost tiebreakers to the Pacers, Knicks, Bucks, and Heat. They could also lose their tiebreaker with the Cavs if Cleveland beats Indiana or Charlotte (it comes down to conference record between those two teams).
Miami closes out on the road in Atlanta and then home games against Dallas and Toronto twice. The Mavs are playing for something, so that's probably a loss. But they could go 3-1 to finish the season, which gives them an outside chance of reaching the sixth seed. Miami lost the tiebreaker against Indiana, so they’ll probably need the Cavs to slide.
So after all that, how do we think it will go?
I’m keeping Philadelphia and Miami in the play-in. If Cleveland beats Memphis and Charlotte, they’ll be fine. Indiana at Cleveland on Friday night might be the final determining factor. Orlando at Philadelphia on Friday will also be important. Those results can lock everything in. I expect Dallas to beat Miami, which will essentially keep the Heat in the 7/8 game.
So my best guess is Sixers vs. Heat for the chance to face Milwaukee and then the loser gets a chance to face Boston.
I don’t care who wins that game because it shouldn’t matter, but I think the slightly better path would be to make Joel Embiid work for another game before having to face the Celtics. Anything that puts more pressure on him to play through the knee injury is to Boston’s advantage.
Of course, things could change. None of these teams is very reliable, so what I think should happen vs what actually happens can be two very different things.
OTHER NOTES
Just a couple of mentions of things that happened yesterday:
- Kristaps Porzingis won East Player of the Week. He joins Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, and Derrick White as POTW winners. No team has ever had more than two different guys win, so that's a little nod to how deep and good this team is.
- Neemias Queta was signed to a standard NBA contract. This is how I expected it to go. With no need to sign him any earlier, Boston just let the two-way deal run its course because that's not taxed. The standard deal is, so they’ll only have to pay the tax on that for a week. Congrats to Queta for earning this deal. He’s a nice depth piece to have in the playoffs (two-way players are not eligible for the playoffs).