Regular-season record: 61-21<\/p>\n
OffRtg: 119.5 (2) DefRtg: 110.1 (4) NetRtg: +9.4 (2) Pace: 96.6 (29)<\/p>\n
First-round series: Up 1-0 vs. Orlando<\/a><\/p>\n The champs looked ready to defend their title on Sunday, holding the Magic under a point per possession and making 16 3-pointers against the team that was the best at limiting attempts from beyond the arc in the regular season. More important is that Jaylen Brown didn\u2019t look limited by the right knee issue<\/a> that\u2019s been bothering him.<\/p>\n The case for the Celtics: They\u2019re the defending champs, and we can\u2019t forget how relentless they were on both ends of the floor as they went 16-3 in last year\u2019s playoffs. When they\u2019re purposeful about attacking the opponent\u2019s weakest defenders and make the right reads, they\u2019re nearly impossible to stop. On defense, they have no shortage of great stoppers.<\/p>\n The Celtics had the best record (13-5) in games played between the top six teams in the East, having scored 121.8 points per 100 possessions over those 18 games. They\u2019ll have to win some road games in the next two months, but they were a better road team (33-8<\/a>, plus-9.5 per 100 possessions<\/a>) than they were last season (27-14, plus-7.7).<\/p>\n The case against the Celtics: It starts with Brown\u2019s knee and the wrist injury that Jayson Tatum suffered in the fourth quarter on Sunday. The Celtics have two days off before Game 2 and should have an extended break before the conference semifinals, but after the first round, teams generally play every other day.<\/p>\n Assuming the Celtics get past Orlando, their remaining opponents\u2019 offenses will put a lot more pressure on Al Horford and Kristaps Porzi\u0146\u0123is in the pick-and-roll. And it remains to be seen if this team will have the same possession-to-possession focus that it had a year ago, when it hadn\u2019t won a championship yet.<\/p>\n Something to watch in Game 2: Ball movement. Tatum and Brown can beat you one-on-one, but the Celtics are at their best offensively when their talent creates ball movement and open shots off the catch. That was a slow-paced game on Sunday (87 possessions each), but the Celtics\u2019 28 catch-and-shoot 3-point attempts were tied for the seventh most Orlando has allowed this season. If they can keep the number of catch-and-shoot attempts in that range every game, it\u2019s a good sign.<\/p>\n Next game: Wed. vs. ORL, 7 p.m. ET, TNT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Regular-season record: 61-21 OffRtg: 119.5 (2) DefRtg: 110.1 (4) NetRtg: +9.4 (2) Pace: 96.6 (29) First-round series: Up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,6,11,552],"class_list":{"0":"post-530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-nba-playoffs","11":"tag-nba-power-rankings"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}