This is what the Celtics would be looking at in the postseason if the season ended today.
Whether you’re adept at understanding how the NBA’s play-in tournament affects the Boston Celtics’ postseason picture or totally clueless about how it shakes up the historic way the playoffs have gone down, we can help clarify what the Celtics are facing and help Boston’s seeding horizon make sense.
With each win or loss potentially critical for where the Celtics will finish in the standings — and with it, who they will face and in what format come the postseason — we’ve put together this guide to help you make sense of Boston’s postseason situation on a game-to-game basis.
The Celtics sat four starters on Monday and lost as might be expected — let’s take a look at how things would shake out if the standings of the day hold with Boston in the East’s fourth slot
Starting Boston Celtics big man Robert Williams III has himself a torn meniscus in his leg to deal with, setting back his and the Celtics’ hopes for a potential title run — or did it? With news that the Texas A&M product might actually be able to return from surgery in the second or third round of the 2022 NBA Playoffs, Boston might just be able to weather the storm of the first round or two of the postseason with some luck and health in other key players.
Is it reasonable to expect him back this season? In what kind of shape will he be in given it is a leg injury that will affect his conditioning being out that long? Can the Celtics hold down the fort without him if they draw one of the worse matchups sans a Timelord in the fold?
The hosts of the CLNS Media “Garden Report” podcast Bob Ryan and Jeff Goodman discuss the unfortunate news and what its impact for Boston might be in a recent emergency episode put out for exactly this purpose.
Check out the clip embedded above to hear their takes on making a run without WIlliams.
This is what the Celtics would be looking at in the postseason if the season ended today.
Whether you’re adept at understanding how the NBA’s play-in tournament affects the Boston Celtics’ postseason picture or totally clueless about how it shakes up the historic way the playoffs have gone down, we can help clarify what the Celtics are facing and help Boston’s seeding horizon make sense.
With each win or loss potentially critical for where the Celtics will finish their season — and with it, who they will face and in what format come the postseason — we’ve put together this guide to help you make sense of Boston’s postseason situation on a game-to-game basis.
After beating the Minnesota Timberwolves to take first in the East, the Celtics control their playoff destiny, but even so, let’s dive into how that might play out if the season ended today.
Boston Celtics move to East’s first-place spot with win over Timberwolves https://t.co/uoalQO2byH
Unthinkable even a few weeks ago after a 17 – 19 start for the Boston Celtics, the guys in green and white could legitimately end the season as the NBA’s Eastern Conference No. 2 or even No. 1 seed. But with their excellent play in the 2021-22 regular season comes the potential to face a formidable postseason foe in the 2022 NBA Playoffs.
That sleeper of a team would be the Brooklyn Nets, who have a renowned postseason killer in Kevin Durant, and increasingly available Kyrie Irving, and perhaps even a returning Ben Simmons to contend with in the first round should they clear the play-in tournament gauntlet and represent the East’s No. 7 or No. 8 seed.
Should the Celtics try to avoid such a matchup despite how they hae been playing? Or would this send the wrong message to a team fueled as much by their confidence as their talent?
The host of the CLNS Media “Winning Plays” podcast Brian Robb got together with Tom Westerholm of Boston.com to talk all things Boston in the playoffs; check the link embedded above to hear what they have to say about this question.
How far can the St. Louis native take this team with Jaylen Brown and Robert Williams III’s help?
At the midpoint of the Boston Celtics‘ 2021-22 NBA season, the team was not seen as a lock to make the postseason, never mind be discussed seriously as a likely option to pick as a 2022 NBA Finals participant.
Since that time, the team has transformed itself both in terms of roster makeup and style of play, the Celtics putting together the best defense in the entire league and one of the best offenses behind the best play of All-Star forward Jayson Tatum‘s career. His ascent to an All-NBA level of play this season has raised Boston’s ceiling from hovering around the range of the league’s play-in tournament to a true title contender.
Just how important is this leap from the St. Louis native for the Celtics’ prospects moving forward?
While it might be hard to overstate it, the folks over at the CLNS Media podcast “The Garden Report” explored this topic on a recent episode; check out the clip embedded above to get their view on the import of Tatum’s rise.
Is he right? Or is Boston just the flavor of the month for the national media?
There has been a fair amount of debate over just how good the new-look Boston Celtics have become in the second half of the 2021-22 NBA season, with some analysts going as far as to suggest that the Celtics could very well end the season by hanging the long-hoped for Banner 18 in the rafters of TD Garden.
Others remain skeptical given the stiff competition and coagulation of talent we are seeing this season in the NBA’s Eastern Conference, the best showing of quality teams we have seen on this side of the league’s geographical decade for many years now.
And it is not just local media gassing up the hometown team either — national analysts are starting to take note of the Celtics’ success and buy into the possibility that Boston is a legitimate contender.
Even Stephen A. Smith of ESPN is drinking the green Kool-Aid of late, going as far as to say on record he thinks that Boston could win the East in the 2022 postseason.
Check out the clip of the man himself explaining his reasoning for such a bold claim on “First Take”.
Which teams should the Boston Celtics want to play in the 2022 NBA Playoffs — and more importantly, should the Celtics consider the strategic resting of players in certain matchups to help speed along such a matchup?
When it comes to the postseason, it can be the case that one team has another club’s number in terms of how they play against each other. In other words, sometimes the weaknesses of a given roster can be exploited with ease by a team built to do it, and even at times by lesser rosters in terms of the overall talent a team can bring to bear.
For some fans, such gamesmanship is an anathema to what we should want to see in the playoffs and represents a losing mentality. But at the end of the day when they talk about champions in prior seasons, they talk about how they managed to defeat the odds to accomplish one of the toughest feats in the sports by definition.
And rarely if it all whether they should have played another opponent.
Check out the hosts of the CLNS Media podcast Adam Kaufman and Evan Valenti as they chop it up on this subject with former Sports Illustrated reporter Ian Thomsen.
Check out what the White Mambe sees in store for the Celtics this postseason.
With a mere 11 games left to play out of the Boston Celtics‘ 82 total of the 2021-22 NBA season, the 2022 postseason picture is starting to come into focus for the storied franchise just as their level of play has landed them squarely in the contention conversation for hanging Banner 18.
Currently a full game behind their Atlantic Division rival Philadelphia 76ers in the Eastern Conference’s fourth-place position and a game and a half ahead of the Chicago Bulls, the 43 – 28 Celtics would end up facing the latter team in the 4/5 matchup in the East’s first round if the season ended today. And while that might be about as favorable of a draw as Boston could reasonably hope for, the season in fact does NOT end today.
To that end, the folks over at WEEI asked on a Celtics alumnus and NBC Sports Boston broadcaster in his own right, the “White Mamba” himself, Brian Scalabrine.
Watch the clip embedded above to hear the former Celtics big man share his thoughts on where he thinks his former team will finish, who they want to face, and more.
Boston’s defensive dominance is getting to the point it can’t be discounted in the hunt for Banner 18.
The trend of national NBA writers taking note of the 2021-22 NBA season‘s second-half transformation of the Boston Celtics from a team stuck on the treadmill of mediocrity to a legitimate contender continues to grow with every Celtics win.
Their top-rated defense has them beating teams at home and on the road by a serious margin, a clear sign historically of a dangerous playoff team capable of winning it all. And over at Sports Illustrated, staff writer Rohan Nadkarni is among the new believers in the Celtics’ smothering defensive capabilities, which he wrote on at length in a new article positioning Boston as his second-ranked Eastern Conference contender.
“Since Jan. 1 — as the big omicron COVID-19 variant wave that hit the NBA started to recede — the Celtics are first in defense (by a significant margin), eighth in offense and first in net rating,” begins Nadkarni.
Where will Boston be in the standings among their East peers come season’s end? Who should Boston want to face in the first round? In this episode, we dive deep into all things Celtics betwee… https://t.co/MKUXYnki2d
Boston’s head coach wants the team ready when the East postseason begins for the Celtics.
The Boston Celtics are, along with the rest of the league, drawing close to the end of their 2021-22 regular-season schedule, with playoff seeding coming into focus at the same time the final adjustments the team will have a chance to make heading into the 2022 NBA Playoffs can be tinkered with.
And after playing some of his core players heavy minutes while other players newer to this iteration of the Celtics in need of some floor time to get more comfortable in the flow of the team’s switch-heavy defense, Boston head coach Ime Udoka was asked whether he might sit some guys ahead of the postseason some nights, or give key players nights off.
“It could be both,” he offered.
According to ESPN’s Tim Legler, the Boston Celtics are the top defensive team in the East https://t.co/7Ss4Noey6x
