Breaking down the Celtics’ potential first-round playoff opponents

The Boston Celtics may be able to put their thumb on the scale in the final game of the season when it comes to who they draw in the first round — but will it matter?

The Boston Celtics finally have a clearer picture of how their 2019-20 season will end, and with it, who they might face in the playoffs.

Virtually certain to end up locked into the third seed of the East with the Toronto Raptors three games ahead of Boston, and the Miami Heat 2.5 games behind them, the Celtics are further bolstered by a relatively favorable regular season schedule in their eight remaining games.

That schedule will end with a game against the Miami Heat — one of the three teams they will end up facing, depending on how the regular season shakes out, so they may have a chance to influence who they’ll face in the playoffs if they believe there’s an advantage of one over another.

The other two teams include the Indiana Pacers and Philadelphia 76ers, the Sixers and Pacers in a statistical tie with the Pacers holding the tiebreaker and thus the fifth seed, and Miami ahead of both in fourth place in the East with a two game lead.

The team they’d face in the first round if the season ended today — the 76ers — are arguably the team they’d want to face the least, with only one game of four played against them in the 2019-20 season going Boston’s way.

Still, with Philadelphia’s size having proven a problem in the past, there’s a chance the lynchpin of their starting unit — center Joel Embiid — will not be in the best of shape given the long layoff.

Would that be enough to offset the risk that the Sixers might still have Boston’s number, especially given that same hiatus gave Philly’s second-best player Ben Simmons time to heal a balky back?

That would depend on the alternatives.

Miami has shown flashes of being a dangerous team, but hasn’t proven an especially difficult challenge in the two games Boston has played them — both wins.

The Pacers have also been a tough if superable opponent in the regular season to date, with the Celtics splitting the two contests in close games.

Since then, Victor Oladipo’s quad has had time to healt further, and Malcolm Brogdon’s tendonitis time to calm down while they lost wing Jeremy Lamb for the season with multiple injuries to his lower extremities.

For now it seems that Philly is the team to avoid, simply based on past experience and that franchise having the most to gain from rest of Boston’s opponents despite their struggles elsewhere.

And for a franchise more concerned with banners than deep playoff runs, the team they’d play in the second round may matter as much to how the season’s end is viewed longer-term.

For now, that’s probably going to be the Raptors, with a very small chance of the Orlando Magic, Brooklyn Nets or Washington Wizards advancing from the 2/7 bracket.

Given the intense games the Celtics have had with Toronto this season, Boston may want to go out of their way to avoid the 76ers. But, we’ll likely need much if not all of the rest of the regular season to see which of the Pacers and the Heat is the better option to hope for on Boston’s end.

And perhaps try out some unusual lineups in that final game against the Heat to close out the season, should the urge arise, in a totally unrelated observation.

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