The Boston Celtics will have another chance to secure the No. 2 seed for the Eastern Conference playoffs when they host the New Orleans Pelicans on Friday night.<\/p>\n
Boston (54-26) could have clinched second place by beating New York on Thursday night, but the Knicks scored nine of the final 11 points to earn a 112-106 victory. <\/p>\n
The Celtics and Knicks each have two games to play, and any Boston victory or New York loss will give Boston the No. 2 seed. The Knicks will host Toronto on Friday night.<\/p>\n
“Obviously we have to take care of the first round first, and I don’t think we can play them (the Knicks) in the first round, so that’s where our focus is,” Boston guard Payton Pritchard said. “If we see them again, we’ll be ready.”<\/p>\n
Baylor Scheierman’s performance was a bright spot for Boston in the loss to New York. On a night when the Celtics didn’t have leading scorer Jaylen Brown (left Achilles tendinitis), Scheierman made 6 of 7 3-point attempts and tied his career high by scoring 20 points.<\/p>\n
“Obviously, shot-making is the easiest thing to see and helps us on the scoreboard, but he just does a lot for us,” Boston coach Joe Mazzulla said. “Whether it’s his crashing or his defense, but his instincts on both ends. … He just continues to get better and better, and that’s what we need, hitting that stretch there.”<\/p>\n
Thursday’s game was the first time Jayson Tatum played at New York since he ruptured his right Achilles tendon in a road game against New York during the playoffs last season. Tatum collected 24 points, 13 rebounds and eight assists in Thursday’s loss.<\/p>\n
“It was a big moment, a big hurdle for me,” he said. “I was nervous and anxious to come back here.”<\/p>\n
New Orleans (26-54), meanwhile, is coming off Tuesday’s 156-137 feel-good win against Utah. The Pelicans set a franchise record for points scored in a game with the win, which ended an eight-game losing streak.<\/p>\n
Jeremiah Fears scored 40 points against Utah to set a Pelicans record for most points in a game by a rookie. Fears, the seventh overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, made 17 of 29 shots from the field.<\/p>\n
“Really just proud of his growth,” New Orleans coach James Borrego said. “From training camp to where he’s at today — he’s taken a massive step. This franchise is in a really good place because of players like him. … I see a clear pathway for this team to be successful moving into the future.”<\/p>\n
New Orleans won even though it played without starters Zion Williamson, Trey Murphy III, Dejounte Murray, Herb Jones and Saddiq Bey. <\/p>\n
Murphy (right ankle sprain) and Murray (left hand contusion) were injured. Williamson, Jones and Bey were active but didn’t leave the bench in the team’s final home game.<\/p>\n
The Pelicans have ruled out Williamson, Jones and Bey for Friday’s game.<\/p>\n
New Orleans, which will miss the playoffs for the second straight season, will wrap up the regular season Sunday at Minnesota.<\/p>\n
“We have two more games to play,” Borrego said. “I want to honor those two games. Go play the best basketball possible for those two games.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Boston Celtics will have another chance to secure the No. 2 seed for the Eastern Conference playoffs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3766],"tags":[7,45,75,3798,46,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-707449","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-celtics","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-boston-celtics","11":"tag-bostonceltics","12":"tag-celtics","13":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116380882937410893","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707449","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=707449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}