Celtics own NBA-best record against top-four opponents

While the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers may be stealing the headlines with the league’s best winning percentages, it’s Boston with the best record vs. tough opponents.

When it comes to games won against quality opponents, there’s no team better in the league than the Boston Celtics.

Despite the fact they currently hold the third-best win/loss ratio in the NBA, behind the tied .870 Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers, Boston has the better record against quality opponents, even with a .762 winning percentage.

While at first glance this sounds confusing, it’s actually pretty simple. The two teams ahead of the Celtics in the standings may have more wins — but they came over inferior opponents.

To wit, the Bucks have only three wins over top-four teams in their respective conference (twice against the Los Angeles Clippers, once vs. the Toronto Raptors), while the Lakers have just one — a win over the Denver Nuggets.

Boston, however, has five such victories under its belt (and, to be fair, two such losses), including wins over Toronto, Milwaukee, Denver, the Dallas Mavericks and the Miami Heat.

While the sheer number of games may indicate the Bucks and Lakers capable of winning games they ought to, the Celtics have a significantly more impressive resume each team’s winning percentage alone does not reflect.

Boston Celtics team reporter Marc D’Amico notes, “No other team [with a top-four record in their conference] has logged more than four such victories, and six of those seven teams have won three or fewer games against each conference’s top-four seeds.”

And, as D’Amico notes, Boston has beat five of the seven other top four teams as well, leaving only the two Los Angeles franchises as challenges for later in the season, the Clippers narrowly escaping Boston in their first meeting of the season.

Just how good can this Celtics team get? If they can get even a little growth from the frontcourt players and the rookies, it’s hard not to daydream.

“We’re way ahead of where I thought we would be results-wise,” offered head coach Brad Stevens after last night’s win over the Nuggets.

That makes — well, a lot of us, after the fiasco that was last season.

Not that we’re complaining.