The Boston Celtics are very comfortably ensconced in the East’s third seed ahead of the plan for the resumption of the 2019-20 NBA season which will be voted on at Thursday’s planned Board of Governors’ meeting reported by Stadium’s Shams Charania and ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
But is it comfortable enough with eight games being considered for the rest of the regular season?
If the Celtics hope to maintain the third seed, almost certainly. If, as NBA Sports Boston’s Chris Forsberg pointed out on Twitter, the Miami Heat were to win seven of their eight remaining games and Boston lost half of the same number of contests, they could leapfrog the Celtics in the standings.
And at 6.5 games behind the Toronto Raptors, they aren’t moving up in the standings in any kind of realistic scenario worth considering.
Hard to see the Celtics moving off the 3 seed even with eight more games. Say Boston goes 4-4, Miami would have to go 7-1 to leapfrog.
Shuffling in spots 4-6 in East, however, could deliver first-round opponent other than Philly.
— Chris Forsberg (@ChrisForsberg_) June 3, 2020
However, we could see the opponent Boston faces change, given the Philadelphia 76ers — the team the Celtics would currently face if the season ended today — are in a tie with the Indiana Pacers (who hold the tiebreaker and thus the fifth seed at the moment).
The Heat are also in the mix at just two games ahead of much-healthier Philly and Indiana franchises, the time off perhaps enough to give the 76ers and/or Pacers momentum to to threaten Miami.
So, it seems very likely the Celtics will have the third seed heading into the playoffs — and may be able to influence their potential opponent given how tight the race four through six is.
However, none of the trio of teams in likely range to face them is going to be a walk in the park, either.
[lawrence-related id=36348,36342,36335,36317]