{"id":846788,"date":"2026-09-29T16:24:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T16:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/846788\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T16:24:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T16:24:17","slug":"nba-experts-bold-celtics-prediction-might-surprise-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/846788\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Expert’s Bold Celtics Prediction Might Surprise Fans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maybe the Boston Celtics<\/a> won’t lose as many games as some expect after the Jaylen Brown trade.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the 2026-27 NBA season, The Sporting News’ Stephen Noh predicted the win totals for every team in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n

Not only does Noh think the Celtics will be the No. 1 seed<\/a>, but he has them winning 54 games<\/a>. That’s only two fewer wins than last season.<\/p>\n

“The\u00a0Celtics\u00a0may have lost Jaylen Brown from their 56-win team last season, but they should still be near the top of the East standings,” writes Noh<\/a>.\u00a0“Jayson Tatum is more than capable of replacing Brown’s production. It’s reasonable to expect a return to All-NBA form for him based on his small sample of play last season.<\/p>\n

“Paul George should also help considerably. While he can’t be projected for huge minutes, he was a good starter for the\u00a0Sixers\u00a0last year and fits perfectly into Boston’s system. The same goes for Mitchell Robinson, whose plus defense and elite offensive rebounding is estimated to add between three and four wins to Boston’s total.”<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Payton Pritchard Just Revealed Something That Could Be Huge for Celtics<\/a><\/p>\n

The biggest concern for the Celtics is health.<\/p>\n

Tatum tore his Achilles during the 2025 NBA Playoffs and appeared in only 16 games last season. With Jaylen Brown now in Philadelphia, Boston needs Tatum to be available and return to his All-NBA form more than ever.<\/p>\n

A healthy Paul George would help, too. George was still a valuable player with the 76ers, but he played 41 games in 2024-25 and 37 games in 2025-26, although he missed 25 games last season while serving an NBA suspension.<\/p>\n

If Tatum and George can stay on the court, 50-plus wins feels realistic.<\/p>\n

If they can’t, the Celtics will have a much harder time keeping pace with the Toronto Raptors, Cleveland Cavaliers and New York Knicks at the top of the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n

More Celtics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maybe the Boston Celtics won’t lose as many games as some expect after the Jaylen Brown trade. Ahead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":846789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3766],"tags":[7,45,75,3798,46,6],"class_list":["post-846788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boston-celtics","tag-basketball","tag-boston","tag-boston-celtics","tag-bostonceltics","tag-celtics","tag-nba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117355260349072515","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846788","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=846788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}