{"id":545799,"date":"2026-01-19T01:45:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T01:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/545799\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T01:45:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T01:45:18","slug":"are-the-boston-celtics-on-course-to-make-the-nba-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/545799\/","title":{"rendered":"Are the Boston Celtics on course to make the NBA Finals?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Following the Boston Celtics 132-106 win over the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday, Jan. 17, Joe Mazzulla&#8217;s team now holds a 1.5 game lead over the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/new-york-knicks\/18\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:New York Knicks;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">New York Knicks<\/a> for the second seed in the Eastern Conference. Boston is 4.5 games behind the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/detroit-pistons\/8\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Detroit Pistons;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Detroit Pistons<\/a>, who they face on Monday, Jan. 19.<\/p>\n<p>Considering this season was supposed to be a &#8220;gap year&#8221; for the Celtics, they&#8217;ve defied all negative expectations and proven that even without superstar forward Jayson Tatum, they&#8217;re still one of the best teams in the NBA. Joe Mazzulla&#8217;s hardline coaching has seen multiple young members of the roster improve their games on the fly, with Anfernee Simons and Neemias Queta both benefiting from Mazzulla&#8217;s approach.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Given how wide open the Eastern Conference is this season, Celtics fans are starting to dream about a potentially deep playoff run, with a spot in the Eastern Conference Finals (or further) becoming more realistic by the week. During a recent YouTube video posted by &#8220;The Score,&#8221; the host explores the possibility that Boston could be an NBA Finalist this season, and what teams could be standing in its way.<\/p>\n<p>You can watch the full YouTube video by clicking on the embedded link above.<\/p>\n<p>Watch or listen to the &#8220;Celtics Chronicle&#8221; podcast on:<\/p>\n<p>YouTube:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/3QnlPcS\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:https:\/\/bit.ly\/3QnlPcS;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">https:\/\/bit.ly\/3QnlPcS<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Spotify:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/40JRevf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:https:\/\/bit.ly\/40JRevf;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">https:\/\/bit.ly\/40JRevf<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Apple:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apple.co\/45sAUBG\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:https:\/\/apple.co\/45sAUBG;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">https:\/\/apple.co\/45sAUBG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Substack:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/3WoA0Cf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:https:\/\/bit.ly\/3WoA0Cf;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">https:\/\/bit.ly\/3WoA0Cf<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Celtics Wire: <a href=\"https:\/\/celticswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/celtics\/2026\/01\/18\/are-the-celtics-on-course-to-make-the-nba-finals\/88246197007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Are the Celtics on course to make the NBA Finals?;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Are the Celtics on course to make the NBA Finals?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following the Boston Celtics 132-106 win over the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday, Jan. 17, Joe Mazzulla&#8217;s team now&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3766],"tags":[4329,208,7,45,75,3798,46,188,1409,2955,77,2675,6,4986,191],"class_list":{"0":"post-545799","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-celtics","8":"tag-anfernee-simons","9":"tag-atlanta-hawks","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-boston","12":"tag-boston-celtics","13":"tag-bostonceltics","14":"tag-celtics","15":"tag-detroit-pistons","16":"tag-eastern-conference","17":"tag-eastern-conference-finals","18":"tag-jayson-tatum","19":"tag-joe-mazzulla","20":"tag-nba","21":"tag-neemias-queta","22":"tag-new-york-knicks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115919239624825385","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545799","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=545799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}