Don’t expect much drama at the top of the Eastern Conference over the final month-plus of the NBA regular season.
The 46-18 Celtics entered Monday eight games back of the Cleveland Cavaliers for the top spot in the East, a gap they’re unlikely to close with just 18 games remaining. Boston also held a comfortable 5 1/2-game lead on the third-place New York Knicks.
So, barring a major surprise between now and late April, the defending champion C’s are all but guaranteed to enter the playoffs as the East’s No. 2 seed.
Who will their first-round opponent be? That’s still difficult to predict at this stage. But the most likely candidates are the Atlanta Hawks (30-34 as of Monday), Orlando Magic (30-35) and Miami Heat (29-34). Those teams entered the week ranked seventh, eighth and ninth in the East standings, with sizable gaps on both sides between sixth-place Detroit and 10th-place Chicago.
Per the rules of the NBA Play-In Tournament, the winner of a one-game playoff between Nos. 7 and 8 advances to play the No. 2 seed in the opening round. The loser of that game faces the winner of 9 vs. 10 for the right to face the top seed.
The Celtics have not been the regular-season juggernaut they were a year ago, when they bulldozed their way to a 64-18 record and won the East by 14 games. Part of that is due to improved competition, especially from Cleveland, which is on pace for 69 wins and entered Monday on a 14-game winning streak. But Boston also has both dealt with more injuries than it did last season and been more willing to rest players with an eye toward keeping them fresh for the postseason. Lack of focus has been an issue at times, as well.
Despite those factors, the Celtics are 14-3 in their last 17 games and carry a four-game win streak into Monday night’s matchup with the lowly Utah Jazz.
“Night in and night out, it takes different things,” Jaylen Brown said after Saturday night’s 111-101 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. “Obviously it’s a journey, 82 games. Sometimes you get a matchup on a Tuesday in some random city, and you’ve just got to be mentally and physically prepared throughout the journey of the season, which is tough. Obviously, we don’t make excuses as athletes, but it takes a lot to go into that and perform at a high level. But when you get towards the playoffs, things, matchups, you get more detailed. You’ve got more time to just focus on the details of whatever that matchup is or whatever that team is, and things kind of get more intense.
“Throughout the season, a lot of times the basketball is like, teams are just either going through the motions or whatever. But when the playoffs come around, there’s a difference between the regular season and the playoffs.”
The home stretch of Boston’s schedule features quite a few of those forgettable matchups Brown referenced. Just four of its final 18 games are against teams currently above .500 (vs. Oklahoma City this Wednesday, at Sacramento on March 24, at Memphis on March 31 and at New York on April 8). The Celtics will face the bottom six teams in the NBA’s overall standings a total of seven more times, starting with Monday’s matchup against 15-49 Utah.
It’s the NBA’s second-easiest remaining schedule based on opponent winning percentage. But it likely won’t help them catch the Cavaliers, meaning Cleveland should have home-court advantage if the teams meet in the Eastern Conference finals.
The Celtics and Cavs split their four-game season series, with each team winning once at home and once on the road. Boston was missing two starters in each of its two losses (Brown and Derrick White in the first; Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday in the second) and all four games were decided by seven points or fewer.