The Boston Celtics’ six-game winning streak came to a close on Monday night, at the hands of the Chicago Bulls, bringing the Celtics within the final fifteen games of the regular season.
The tightness of the Eastern Conference, and the high-level play of teams like the Atlanta Hawks and the surging New York Knicks places the Celtics in sixth place currently. Should the playoffs start today, they would face the Hawks in a series where Trae Young and company would host.
Heading down the stretch, I want to look at a couple things we know about the Celtics, a couple questions that I have, or things that I don’t know for sure, and then games that are must-wins. If they want to set themselves up for success in both the early rounds of the playoffs, as well as having home court advantage in later rounds.
Outside of Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, who the offense largely circles around, on a given night it’s hard to know who the third and fourth best player for the Celtics is going to be. They are the team most ravaged by the protocols, and have had little lineup consistency (more on that later). But when Kemba Walker is allowed to get his touches, mixed with his increased playmaking as compared to last year, the offense flows and has a rhythm that is more than consecutive wing isolations.
While it’s true that there hasn’t been much of any lineup consistency for the Celtics this season, as players return from injury and protocol, there’s a second unit that has emerged that I believe shows flashes of both offensive and defensive potential. While it’s true that Grant Williams and Semi Ojeleye will always get minutes, I think the best group is the following: Payton Pritchard, Evan Fournier, Romeo Langford, Jabari Parker, and Luke Kornet.
Much of the criticism from fans to Head Coach Brad Stevens revolves around the lineups that have been mentioned, and how it often feels frustrating to see who’s sitting on the bench at the end of games. Admittedly, it’s no secret the Celtics have been ravaged by the protocols, but it’s hard to even find a lineup with the everyday guys. On top of this, even many of the new guys brought in (Fournier, Parker, Kornet) don’t have much playoff experience, making me wonder about those lineups as well.
This encapsulates my “must win games” as well, but the Celtics play 10 of their last 14 games against teams with worse records than them as of the time of writing, and realistically they should look to attack with the same kind of offense that has been flowing during the win streak and win most of them. The must-wins are home against Oklahoma City and Charlotte and trips to Orlando, Cleveland, and Minnesota, respectively.