Celtics' playoff chances

Regarding Boston's playoff chances, I pick them higher than the 12 seed that seems to be the media consensus, and they do have a shot at the playoffs, but that's only because the bottom 2/3 of the East is not very good.

Here are the groups I break them into. I list the teams in alphabetical order, not projected order of finish.

IN:
Atlanta
Brooklyn
Chicago
Indiana
Miami
New York

OUT:
Charlotte
Philly

COMPETING FOR THE LAST TWO SPOTS:
Boston
Cleveland
Detroit
Milwaukee
Orlando
Toronto
Washington

I think Cleveland is a lock for one of those two spots, but I didn't put them in the IN group because they're Cleveland. I want to put some of the COMPETING teams in the OUT group, but they're really not remarkably worse than the other teams in that group.

I see Toronto and Washington as Boston's main competition for the 8th seed. Where it shakes out all depends on injuries, trades, and which team gets it together more than the others. I think Toronto has the best chance, with Boston right behind them. It would be really good for Boston's rebuilding psyche if they could get that 8th spot. They could end up 10th or 11th, but I think they have a legitimate shot at the 8th seed.

I think you can bump up Detroit to at least the 7th or 8th spot. Any front line with Andre Drummond, Greg Monroe and Josh Smith will wear most teams down eventually. And they added Brandon Jennings, who can score and dish without being a true point guard.

Cleveland too, depending if they get anything at all out of Bynum.

I think those two teams round out the 8 in the East. And Boston gets ping pong balls for 2014 in a very strong draft. Not a disaster.

steve3344 wrote:I think you can bump up Detroit to at least the 7th or 8th spot.  Any front line with Andre Drummond, Greg Monroe and Josh Smith will wear most teams down eventually.  And they added Brandon Jennings, who can score and dish without being a true point guard.  

Cleveland too, depending if they get anything at all out of Bynum.  

I think those two teams round out the 8 in the East.  And Boston gets ping pong balls for 2014 in a very strong draft.  Not a disaster.

Agreed.

Detroit is going to be much improved, and surprise a lot of people. I expect Cleveland and Washington to compete for the eighth spot.

We aren't a playoff team this year, but we could be a fun team to watch.

I'd give Detroit an edge over us.  They have some good young talent, are big with Monroe and Drummond and have Josh Smith.  That's a reasonably good and deep front court.   I'm not a big fan of Smith's, I think he's overrated, but he should be worth a few wins for them and a few wins might be all it takes to get them #8, especially given how tough our November is and Rondo will be out.  Rondo has said, trying to be cute, that he'll be back for the winter, possibly by fall.  Winter begins on 12/21. The first game of December is on the 4th, and that would be game #20. So, even if he comes back for the first game of December, with 2 1/2 weeks left in fall, he'd still have missed about 1/4 of the season.

If I had to pick a team that would give us a run for #9 (and hope Cleveland and/or Detroit implode) I'd say it's Milwaukee.  They're iffy at center too (Larry Sanders, Zaza and Raduljica don't exactly scare you to death), have OJ Mayo, have Ilyasova (whom has always played well against us) and Udoh at PF and Caron Butler (not so great anymore), Delfino (underwhelming) and the Greek Freak at SF.  Brandon Knight, Ridnour and Gary Neal are running point.  That's an adequate but not particularly good team, just enough to beat out Washington, Orlando and Toronto and maybe us.

Orlando could be interesting, but not good.  Oladipo is a player.  They have Vucevic, who is better than he looks, Glen Davis with a bum foot, Jameer "I almost fooled them into thinking I was an all-star" Nelson, Jason Maxiell (Big Baby without the bad foot), Nicholson (up-and-coming), Harkless (solid, but still needs to find that one thing that makes him truly dangerous), Afflalo (very good) and Doron Lamb and E'Tuan Moore for offense off the bench from the 2-spot.  You think we're thin at PG?  Look at Orlando.

Washington just took a hit because Okafor is out for the season.  However, with John Wall, Bradley Beal, Kevin Seraphin and Nene they have some players.  Not enough to make much noise, but enough to steal some games from some teams that either take them for granted or that aren't so great themselves.  Like, say, the Celtics.  I think seeing Brazilian Vitor Faverani going against Brazilian Nene would be fun to watch.  Same with Phil Pressey trying to stay between John Wall and the basket.

Toronto's roster is even more unbalanced than ours, but with less talent.


I'm not inclined to try and project how many wins we'll get this year.  Too much hinges upon when Rondo returns and how close to his former form he is.  Too much hinges upon the integration of the Brooklynites and the growth of Green and Sully.  I am inclined, however, to say that I think we'll do better than the pundits are saying we'll be.  We have talent and we have youth.  Our three big issues are the imbalance of our roster (and who knows when and/or how Danny will fix that?), our youth (a double-edged sword) and our newness.  New players, new coaches, new defensive schemes, new offensive playbook.   That's a lot of new.  How much better will we be?  We'll see.


bob


.

Yeah, I should've put Detroit up there. Like Cleveland, I have difficulty shaking my established perception of them. I think Joe Dumars was hugely underrated as a player, but he's been a disaster running that franchise the past five years or so.

Having said that, they did make big moves in the offseason getting Smith and Jennings. I don't think Chauncey Billups has much left in the tank, but he's a good influence. They have issues -- in particular, I'm skeptical about Smith, Monroe, and Drummond working together considering they already had issues with Monroe and Drummond working together last year -- but every other team in the contending group does too, and Detroit's roster has a lot more talent than most.

Compared to the Celtics though, I think Boston's additions of Wallace, Humphries, and Olynyk and the return of Rondo and Sullinger are significant boosts, though you obviously have to factor in the loss of KG and Pierce, which Detroit didn't have. Still, the Celtics were 7th in the East last year, and Detroit was 11th.

So I'd revise my original post to say that Detroit, Toronto, Washington, and Boston are the teams competing for the 8th spot. I don't expect Boston to get it, but they do have a chance.

Detroit and Cleveland will be Boston's main opponents for the last couple of spots, I believe. Maybe even Toronto. Milwaukee entered full rebuild, and Washington will still cling to the bottom rung of the NBA for the foreseeable future.

With that, I think Boston stands a solid chance of making the playoffs, provided Rondo doesn't miss too much time.


KJ