With their win over the Thunder on Wednesday night, the Celtics hit 60 wins and officially clinched the league's best overall record. The team doesn't have much left to play for over these final six regular season games, but their first-round playoff opponent is still very much up in the air.
As the Celtics will be the number one seed in the East, we know they’ll be taking on the eighth seed. But due to the recent implementation of the Play-In Tournament, we won’t know which team that will be until days before round one tips off.
Play-In Tournament Refresher: How it works
The NBA began the play-in tournament during the bubble season and it caught on, albeit with some tweaks down the road. In its current form, teams finishing 1-6 will clinch those seeds for the playoffs and the teams that finish 7-10 in the standings will automatically enter the play-in tournament to compete for the final 7 and 8 seeds.
The regular season ends on Sunday, April 14th and the Play-In Tournament starts two days later on Tuesday, April 16th. The team that finishes in 7th place will host the team that finishes in 8th place. The winner of that single game will earn the 7 seed for the playoffs.
The team that finished 9th in the standings will host the team that finished 10th for one game. The losing team will be eliminated from the postseason. The team that wins that game will then go on the road to face the team that lost the 7 vs. 8 matchup, and the winner will clinch the 8th seed and final spot in the playoffs.
Potential Celtics’ opponents
The standings have been a bit of a revolving door, with several teams battling to avoid the play-in, but here’s how it stands on Thursday morning with the teams directly involved:
- Miami Heat (42-33)
- Indiana Pacers (43-34)
- Philadelphia 76ers (41-35)
Those three teams will be jockeying for position over the next week and a half. One will be able to clinch the 6th seed and avoid the play-in altogether, while the others will battle in the 7 vs. 8 game.
The last two play-in teams are set in stone, it’s just a matter of which team will finish 9th and host the first game, and which will come in 10th and be forced to go on the road.
- Chicago Bulls (36-40)
- Atlanta Hawks (36-40)
So what does this all mean for the Celtics?
To summarize, the Celtics will almost certainly face one of the teams listed above in the first round. If the season ended today, the Pacers would be hosting the Sixers in the 7 vs. 8 matchup. The winner of that game would become the 7 seed.
The Hawks and Bulls would face off in the 9 vs. 10 game. The loser would immediately be eliminated, and the winner of that game would face the loser of Pacers/76ers. The final standings and matchups could still change, but this is a fairly good look at what to expect and look for over the next couple of weeks.
