After beating the Charlotte Hornets on Tuesday, the Boston Celtics are in the driver’s seat for the two seed in the Eastern Conference. They lead the New York Knicks by three games with three games to go, meaning either they’ll clinch the second seed with either a Celtics win or a Knicks loss over the next few days.

Boston has a chance to secure the two seed against New York in its next game on Thursday at Madison Square Garden, which will be the Celtics’ final road game of the regular season. That would be a nice way for Boston to avenge getting eliminated from the playoffs last year at MSG by the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.

One would think Joe Mazzulla would be excited about the possibility of locking up the two seed, potentially at New York’s expense. However, he didn’t sound too thrilled about the idea when asked about it after Tuesday’s win.

 

Joe Mazzulla on the Celtics having the chance at clinching the second seed against the Knicks Thursday:

“You don’t know what’s on the other side of anything… You could say you think something’s good for you until you see the other side.”
–@CLNSMedia pic.twitter.com/AARh0yuTlh

— Celtics on CLNS (@CelticsCLNS) April 8, 2026

 

“I don’t really know what matters… You don’t know what’s on the other side of anything,” Mazzulla said during his postgame press conference. “You could say you think something’s good for you until you see the other side of it. Just gotta stay focused on getting better, and wherever that takes us, we gotta be ready.”

To Mazzulla’s point, the Celtics still don’t know who they’ll face in the first round of the playoffs. If they clinch the two seed, they’ll face the seven seed, which will be decided during next week’s play-in tournament.

Accordingly, Boston could theoretically end up with a worse matchup depending on who advances. 

Furthermore, the two seed didn’t help the Celtics last year, as they lost to the third-seeded Knicks in the second round. 

As Mazzulla knows from previous years, anything can happen in the playoffs. Boston doesn’t really have much control over who it will play in the first round and beyond, so all it can do is take things one game at a time and try to beat whoever’s in front of them.

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