The Celtics faced a must-win game on Monday night in Charlotte, and if they’d lost, this column would have detailed all the reasons that game wasn’t reeaalllly a must-win. It would have been sad and pathetic, so fortunately for everyone involved, the Celtics won big on Monday. With that victory, they moved back into sole possession of the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference, and now have eight games left to wrap it up, and seal the deal, and cliché another cliché!
Will they do it? I have no clue. And don’t pretend that you do either. That’s what makes this fun. Right now, eight games stand between the Boston Celtics and a return to the playoffs — and I know, I know, maybe you don’t want that to happen. Maybe it’s short-sighted. Maybe we’re all worthless addicts looking for a cheap thrill. But come on, for the first time since Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett were sent to Brooklyn, Boston has something to play for. These games actually mean something.
“What, the difference between a lottery pick and a four-game sweep?”
Shut up. That’s not funny. And moving forward, here are a few things to keep in mind:
The Celtics currently own the eighth seed but don’t control their own destiny. If the Celtics win out, and the Nets win out, Brooklyn will make the playoffs. Now obviously, you probably have a better chance of bumping into Brad Stevens drunk at Centerfolds than you do of seeing the Celtics and/or the Nets run the table, but it’s worth noting that little edge. On the other hand, thanks to that Evan Turner triple-double, the Celtics own the tie-breaker against the Nets, and that’s huge. If you do the math, the Celtics magic number to eliminate Brooklyn is down to nine. Any combination of nine Celtics wins and Nets losses will leave Boston on top.
Of course, that’s assuming that the Nets are Boston’s only competition, and that’s not the case. In reality, the Pacers are hanging tough, and we’ll know a lot more about Indiana — and really, the full playoff picture — in 48 hours.
Indiana is currently the tenth seed, a half-game behind the Nets, who are only percentage points behind the Celtics. The Pacers also play at Brooklyn tonight for a game with ginormous postseason implications — especially with Indiana visiting Boston tomorrow night.
If the Pacers beat Brooklyn, Frank Vogel’s boys will arrive at the Garden tomorrow in a straight up tie with Boston for the eighth seed. In that case, the winner of Wednesday’s game would take a one-game lead on the other. If the Celtics win, they’ll clinch the tie-breaker thanks to a 3-1 head-to-head advantage. If the Pacers win, the head-to-head tie breaker will be tied, in which case they’ll move to conference record — where the Pacers currently have a two-game edge on Boston.
If the Pacers lose to Brooklyn tonight, they’ll arrive at the Garden a full game behind Boston (they’ll both trail Brooklyn) and the Celtics will have an opportunity to deliver a death blow to the Pacers playoff hopes. A Celtics win would put them two games ahead of Indiana, but really three games thanks to the head-to-head tie breaker.
So like I said, we’ll know a lot more in 48 hours. By then, the Pacers could be (basically) two games up on the Celtics or (basically) three games down. Either way, Wednesday night will be the most significant Celtics home game since Game 6 against the Knicks in 2013.
One advantage the Celtics have is that the Pacers will be on the second night of a back-to-back. No. Seriously. That should be a good thing for the Celtics. Teams aren’t supposed to play better less than 24 hours after playing another game in a different city.
Of course, after Monday night’s win, the Celtics have now won six straight second legs, and nine of their last 10, and to be honest, I’m not sure why. It would be nice if we could look at the schedule, point out a bunch of cupcake games and chalk it up to circumstance, but that’s not the case. The Celtics last six “second game” wins have come at Charlotte, at Brooklyn, at Indiana, at Miami, vs. upstart Utah and at Phoenix.
One interesting factor is that five of those six wins were preceded by awful losses: overtime at the Lakers, the butt kicking in Cleveland, at Orlando, overtime vs. the Pistons, another butt-kicking against the Clippers. You can make the argument that the Celtics are actually playing better on no rest than on any rest at all. Then again, the sample size is still too small to make any grand assumptions. If nothing else, it’s nice to see how resilient this team has become; that they can suffer a horrible loss and not get caught up in the blame game or name-calling or anything else that’s been known to submarine a season. Instead, when the Celtics take a step back, they man up and move forward. They have a short memory.
The good news is that the Celtics still have two back-to-backs this season — one on the road in Toronto after a home game against Milwaukee, and another on the road in Milwaukee after a home game against Toronto. The bad news is that they don’t play back-to-backs in the playoffs.
The Celtics also have the hardest remaining strength of schedule in the Eastern Conference, thanks largely to four of their last eight games coming against the Cavaliers and the Raptors. In fact, between April 4 and April 14 (the second to last day of the season), the Celtics play four of five games against Cleveland and Toronto.
So, between now and then, just root for the Cavs and the Raptors to win every game they play. Root for the Bulls and Wizards to lose every game they play. Hope that by the end of the week, the Cavs are still sitting pretty at the two seed, and the Raptors have pulled away for the three seed — and David Blatt and Dwayne Casey decide that their stars deserve some rest against the Celtics. You know LeBron will want some. The Raptors are already in full on conservation mode with Kyle Lowry.
Root for the Celtics to face some scrubs instead of a pair of top seeds — while trying to forget that this is the same team that recently lost at home to the Heat (playing without Dwyane Wade and Hassan Whiteside), and less recently lost to the KD-and-Westbrookless Thunder.
And above all else, just root for the Celtics.
I know. You might not want them to win out, or win at all. Instead, every victory is like a poisoned-tip dart to your brain. You don’t want these Celtics to prosper, but to stumble right into the lottery.
But you know what? If that’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. No wishing or cheering will change a thing. All we know right now is that there’s a team and a coach taking the floor every night, representing the Celtics, and playing the game in a way that you can’t help but love. It’s not always pretty, the execution isn’t always admirable, but the effort and team mentality is almost always there. And if you can’t get behind a team like that, what are you doing here? What’s the point? Come on, it’s time to rally around these guys.
There’s another must-win game tomorrow night!
Well, a must-win game unless they lose.
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