How the second half of the season shapes up for the Celtics
The Celtics will have one of the league's easiest schedules for the rest of the season, giving them an opportunity to build their cushion in the standings.
The Celtics entered the All-Star break with the league’s best record, and the road might only get easier when play resumes.
Boston closed out the first part of the season with a resounding win over Brooklyn on Wednesday night, defeating the Nets, 136-86, to pick up their second 50-point win of the season. As they improved to 43-12, the Celtics are the only team in the league with 40 wins.
The Celtics’ dominance is reflected in the standings. They hold a six-game lead over the Cavaliers for the top spot in the Eastern Conference and also currently hold the tiebreaker against Cleveland. The Timberwolves are the only team within five games of the Celtics, sitting four back of Boston for the league’s best record.
Looking at the upcoming schedule, the Celtics’ cushion for both top spots might only widen by the end of the season. The Celtics have the third-easiest strength of schedule the rest of the way (.463 average winning percentage of remaining opponents). The Cavaliers are in the middle of the pack in terms of remaining schedule strength, ranking 15th (.503). The third-seeded Bucks, who are 8.5 games back of the Celtics, and the fourth-seeded Knicks, who are 10 games back of the Celtics, have even tougher schedules, holding the third (.534) and 14th (.504) remaining schedules, respectively.
Now, the really easy part of the Celtics’ remaining schedule won’t be seen right away. Most of the Celtics’ toughest games in the second half of the season also occur in the first three weeks. Seven of their first 11 games after the break are against teams who are in the top seven spots in their respective conferences, and that doesn’t include the surging Warriors. That game against the Warriors comes at the end of a three-game homestand that includes matchups against the 76ers and Mavericks before they embark on a four-game road trip that includes games against the Cavaliers, Nuggets, and Suns.
But after the Celtics face the Suns at home, their schedule softens a lot. They only have six games against teams who hold a top-seven spot within their conference’s standings in the final 16 games of the season. Two of those games (at Milwaukee, vs. New York) come within the final four games of the regular season, when Boston could have everything locked up.
When you factor in the Celtics’ league-best record and net rating (+10.2) to go with their easy schedule, it isn’t necessarily a surprise that analytic models and oddsmakers view it as a near certainty that the Celtics will end up with the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed. Both ESPN’s BPI and Basketball Reference project the Celtics to finish with roughly 63 wins while Basketball Reference gives them a 99.8 percent chance of getting the No. 1 seed. Additionally, DraftKings Sportsbook isn’t offering odds on who will land the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference likely because of the Celtics’ stranglehold on the spot.
Naturally, the Celtics are also still viewed as the favorite to win the title. ESPN’s BPI gives them a 44.8 percent chance of making the NBA Finals and a 31.3 percent chance of winning it all. Basketball Reference gives them a staggering 65.8 percent chance to win the conference and a 46.7 percent chance of hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy. DraftKings is giving the Celtics +115 odds to win their conference and +260 odds to win the title.
But that’s still a long way away from sorting itself out as the playoffs don’t begin until April 20. What will be determined before then is who will win the major individual awards. No one on the Celtics is a frontrunner to win any of the big NBA awards and it doesn’t seem likely that they’ll have a player come home with an individual honor this season.
Jayson Tatum might be the player with the best chance to earn some individual hardware. The Celtics’ star forward is among the handful of favorites to win MVP, earning some notable support in recent days. But even then, he’s still a bit of a long shot as he holds +3000 odds on DraftKings to win the award while he came in sixth in ESPN’s MVP straw poll released on Tuesday.
However, Tatum mentioned Saturday that he’d like to win MVP at some point in his career. If he wants to make a case to win the award, he’ll certainly have the stage to do so in the coming weeks. On top of playing several playoff contenders in the first few weeks following the break, eight of the Celtics’ next 14 games are on national TV, which could help bolster Tatum’s MVP case.
Beyond Tatum, Derrick White and Kristaps Porzingis are listed as long shots to win the Defensive Player of the Year Award on DraftKings. While they hold the seventh- (+3500) and eighth-best odds (+10,000), respectively, Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert is viewed as a heavy favorite to win the award (-650).
The Celtics will probably have representatives though on the All-NBA and All-Defensive teams. Tatum’s standing in the MVP race makes it a near certainty that he’ll make one of the three All-NBA teams as he has a strong case to be named to the first team for a third straight season. Jaylen Brown might have a tougher time making an All-NBA team for the second straight year as there won’t be a position requirement anymore.
White is making a strong case to be named to an All-Defensive team for the second straight year, leading all guards in blocks (1.2 per game) while adding a steal per game. It wouldn’t be a surprise if Tatum, Brown, or Jrue Holiday also receive major consideration to be named to an All-Defensive team, as all three have been lauded for their efforts on that end this season, helping the Celtics hold the third-best defensive rating in the league. It might be tougher for Porzingis to make it on there though because if he misses three more games, he’ll fall short of the league’s 65-game threshold to be eligible for awards.
The Celtics might have some of those individual honors on their mind in the closing months on the side, but it doesn’t seem like it’ll trump their desire to win a title.
“Of course you want to win those things,” Tatum told reporters on Saturday of winning the MVP and other individual honors. “But you can’t take precedent over playing the right way and doing the things that you have to do in order for your team to essentially be the best team in the league and have a chance to win a championship.”
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