Category: Sports News

NBA playoff picture: What are Celtics' best and worst first-round matchups? originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

There are 13 days left in the NBA’s 2025-26 regular season, but the Eastern Conference playoff picture remains a chaotic blur with the six teams in spots 5-10 separated by just 3.5 games. Trying to predict who might emerge as the Boston Celtics’ first-round opponent remains a dart throw. 

Here’s what we know: The Celtics hold a two-game lead on the Knicks in the race for the No. 2 seed, though New York holds the head-to-head tiebreaker (division record) if the teams finish with matching records. There’s a very good chance that the final head-to-head meeting on April 9 will dictate exactly who emerges with the No. 2 seed.

The finish line of the Celtics’ schedule feels a bit like a playoff appetizer platter. Seven of Boston’s final 10 games are against potential first-round opponents, or that cluster of six teams slotted in spots 5-10 in the East. The Knicks would be the Round 2 opponent if they stay at No. 3 and the higher seeds take care of business in Round 1. 

Given the volatility in spots 5-10, we wondered if there are more agreeable opponents than others for the Celtics. If Boston finishes with the No. 2 seed, it would play the winner of the 7-8 play-in game in Round 1; if the Celtics finish with the No. 3 seed, they would play the No. 6 seed to start the playoffs.

Just how jumbled is the bottom of the playoff bracket? All six teams in spots 5-10 are alive for the No. 7 spot, with no team holding better than a 33.1 percent chance to finish there, per Basketball Reference’s daily playoff probabilities report. The Charlotte Hornets face the longest odds to shuffle beyond the 9-10 matchup of the play-in tournament, but five teams have at least a 12 percent chance at the No. 7 spot, per Basketball Reference’s simulations.

If the season ended today, the Philadelphia 76ers and Orlando Magic would meet in the 7-8 game to determine the No. 7 seed. The Atlanta Hawks, who snapped Boston’s three-game win streak on Monday, would be the No. 6 seed.

Who should Celtics fans want their team to face in Round 1? Is there truly a better matchup than another? Is there an opponent they might want to avoid more than another?

The Celtics own a 13-6 record against the teams at the bottom of the East bracket. That includes 3-0 marks against Miami and Toronto, though they’ll play both again over the next six days. Boston lost twice to Philadelphia, but played three games against the 76ers before November 11. The Celtics don’t look like quite the same team now, even beyond the obvious recent return of Jayson Tatum.

To determine the most daunting opponent, we wondered how each of the teams in spots 5-10 fared against top-tier talent. So, we crunched each team’s numbers vs. opponents in the top 10 of point differential in the NBA. Here’s the data from the folks at Cleaning the Glass: 

It’s somewhat surprising that Miami has four more wins than any other team in that cluster. The Hornets — the only team in spots 5-10 that resides in the top 10 in point differential overall — have played fewer total games against top teams than their rivals.

Miami’s biggest weapon might be on the sideline with head coach Erik Spoelstra, who is capable of putting his team in the best possible position to be successful. In fact, the 2023 Heat are basically the only team to emerge from a play-in position and create noise in the postseason (as Celtics fans know all too well). The Heat made the NBA Finals as the No. 8 seed that season.

The Celtics rank in the top 10 in both offensive and defensive rating this season, making a notable surge defensively in the second half of the season. So, how has the cluster of play-in potential teams fared against the top 10 squads in defensive rating this season?

The Magic fare better than the pack against elite defenses, while Miami’s winning percentage dips compared to game against teams with the highest point differential. 

The data suggests that Toronto might be the most ideal matchup for a top-tier opponent. Basketball Reference’s simulations give the Raptors a 79.5 percent chance to land outside the play-in. 

The most likely 7-8 matchup per Basketball Reference’s simulations: Miami vs. Philadelphia. Those two teams just happened to meet on Monday night with the Heat, even while playing without Norm Powell, earning a double-digit win against a full-health Sixers squad. 

Buckle up. There are still plenty of twists and turns before this playoff picture comes into focus. 

The Warriors are 36-39, three games under .500, and Brandin Podziemski has been on the floor for almost all of it.

However you want to slice it, whether it’s NBA.com, lineup data, or just watching the season unfold night after night, the same reality keeps surfacing. Podziemski is right there at the top of this roster in minutes and games played. I’m talking ahead of the names the offense is supposed to orbit around; the veterans who were meant to stabilize everything. And somewhere in that, this season quietly decided he wasn’t a supporting piece anymore.

Podz is a 23-year-old guard learning the job while doing it.

He’s out there running point, crashing the glass, AND getting ran over attempting to take charges. Trying to read the game at full speed while the structure around him kept shifting. That kind of workload isn’t something cosmetic that sits all pretty on a stat page. It sticks to you. It says you were here for this season in a way nothing else really can.

Through the stretches where the offense barely held together, and through nights where it looked like something had finally clicked before slipping away again, Podziemski kept showing up in the middle of it.

And the thing about showing up like that, in this particular moment of Warriors basketball, is that it doesn’t happen in a vacuum. This isn’t just a young guard getting reps. He’s openly talked about what those reps are building toward in terms of earning trust and potentially one day being the guy they hand this to when the current era finally lets go.

“When they leave this thing, they got to leave it with somebody,” Podziemski said. “How can I have their trust?”

That’s not a quiet ambition or “I’m just here to help.” That’s someone looking at a dynasty and thinking about what it means to be next. And once you say that out loud and put that idea in the air? Everything you do starts getting filtered through it.

Every pull-up that comes a beat too early or a missed read when a better option was sitting there can fall under the microscope. That’s where the tension comes from.

You saw it again in Sunday’s loss to Denver. Podziemski forces a look, Kristaps Porzingis is standing open, and Steve Kerr’s voice cuts through the possession like he had a megaphone.

Because if you’re going to talk about holding the baton someday, people are going to watch how you handle it now. To his credit, he hasn’t backed away from that. He’s rebounded like someone who refuses to let position define effort, pushed the pace like he’s trying to solve problems before they fully form, and kept stepping into moments that don’t come with guarantees. He hasn’t answered the question perfectly. That was never really on the table. But he’s answered it in real time.

Night after night, in a season that has asked more questions than it’s answered, Podziemski kept taking on possessions that didn’t have easy solutions. These aren’t empty minutes or safe reps tucked inside a functioning system. These are decisions that live with you, that show up on film, that get talked about in ways young players don’t always get exposed to this early.

This is what the early part of 10,000 hours looks like when it’s happening in public.

It’s uneven. It can be frustrating. It doesn’t always reward you right away. But it builds something underneath the surface that box scores don’t fully capture. Availability is part of it, sure! But this goes deeper. It’s exposure to blinding levels of accountability. It’s a young guard being handed responsibility on a team that didn’t have the luxury of easing him into it.

And he kept going.

So when this season settles into memory (and it will, because seasons like this always end up meaning more later than they do in the moment) it won’t really be about the record. It’ll be about who was out there when nothing felt settled. Podz is absolutely out there in the trenches. What matters now isn’t whether he’s ready, it’s that the season already decided he had to be.

On Monday night, Victor Wembanyama had his seventh career game scoring 40 or more points. Many of those baskets came from lobs while he was posted at the rim.

During the postgame press conference, Wemby was asked about the connection he has with Stephon Castle and how their game has developed as a result.

“We’ve had a chance to spend lots of minutes on the court together and he understands me very well. And that’s not just randomly, we’re just in synch. We get along together because he as the ball handler is actively trying to get the best shot for the team. And me as the roller, try to make a shot every time he throws it up high enough — still sometimes he doesn’t throw it high enough — when he throws it up high enough it ends up in a dunk. And it’s just the beginning, I hope to spend fifteen years as his teammate, so hopefully we see thousands of lobs.”

That’s a lot of high praise for a young player, but then again, Castle isn’t just any player. As the reigning Rookie of the Year, the baton he took from Wembanyama, The UConn guard came in prepared for the rigors of the NBA and has developed at a rapid rate. Whether it’s because of his time with Wemby or whether this is the player Castle could have been on any team, it’s obvious the mutual respect on and off the court has forged a kinship that will shape the future of the San Antonio Spurs and define the next era of franchise.

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The Celtics fell to the Hawks on Monday night, 119–109, in a game that felt competitive for long stretches before slipping away in the second half. Playing short-handed on the second night of a back-to-back, Boston leaned heavily on its depth, getting strong contributions from Luka Garza and the second unit while hanging around into the third quarter.

But as the game wore on, the cracks started to show. Atlanta controlled the paint, pushed the pace, and capitalized on Boston’s turnovers and missed free throws, while Jaylen Brown shouldered the offensive load in a night that felt a little more chaotic than controlled. It wasn’t a game that changes anything big-picture, but it offered a handful of interesting takeaways — some meaningful, some weird, and one involving the rise of an ancient mythical beast.

1. Godzilla → Garzilla → Luka Garza

Luka Garza checks into a game the same way Godzilla comes out of the ocean. Stomping around violently, making an ear-shattering amount of noise, and immediately becoming an entire city’s biggest problem.

There’s just no easing into it with this guy! He simply shows up and produces whenever called upon. Early buckets, threes, constant activity on the glass, keeping possessions alive — every touch turns into something useful. The three in the third quarter — followed by some well-earned chirping — felt like the natural extension of that energy. When Garza is playing like this, he doesn’t ease into the flow of the game. He forces the game to adjust to him.

What stands out most is the readiness. Garza plays like someone who fully expects to impact the game the second his name gets called. There’s no hesitation in his decisions or waiting to “get into rhythm.” He is the rhythm. Offensive rebounds, loose balls, physical finishes, Garza raises the floor of a possession just by being out there.

Which, now that I think about it, tracks. “Gojira” — Godzilla’s original name, as we all know — comes from a mix of the Japanese words for whale (kujira) and gorilla (gorira), representing his massive size and nature-beast characteristics. Massive, physical, completely chaotic. 

They might as well rename the beast Luka Garza.

2. Joe Mazzulla’s mad scientist rotations hit a limit

At one point in the first half, it felt like Joe Mazzulla, eyes closed, was rattling off every player he remembered seeing on the plane earlier that day.

Garza. Walsh. Scheierman. Amari. Pritchard. Hugo. Hauser. Bassey. We saw every available Celtic touch the floor at some point (even if it was only for 17 seconds for some).

It felt less like a rotation and more like Joe standing over a table full of oddly-shaped beakers wondering, “What happens if I mix this with this?”

And honestly? For a while, the chemistry was working. The cook was cooking.

The Celtics didn’t look overwhelmed one bit, despite all the missing faces. They didn’t look disorganized. Guys knew where to be, what to do, how to play within the system. The Mazzulla structure is so strong that you can plug almost anyone into it and still get functional basketball.

But then the third quarter hit, and the experiment hit its limit.

There’s only so much lineup wizardry you can get away with before the game starts asking for your best stuff. Shot creation. Rhythm. Familiarity. And on tired legs on the second night of a back-to-back against a team that wants to speed you up, that margin shrinks to a tiny sliver.

Joe ran out of magic potions in this one, but the all-cure for the playoffs might just be this team’s depth.

3. Vintage Jaylen showed up…just not the good kind of vintage

If Jaylen Brown is going to be the tip of the spear, he has to be sharp.

And for stretches in this game, he was anything but.

This was one of those nights that felt like a throwback, just not the good kind — like Raptors throwbacks or Nickelodeon GUTS. The inefficiency (9-for-29), the turnovers (6), the missed free throws, possessions where he looked sped up instead of conducting the show. You could almost hear the old narratives creeping back in, the ones that have been rightfully buried for months. I won’t tolerate “does Jaylen Brown have a left hand?” discussions entering mainstream discourse again!

To be clear, this game didn’t feel, to me, like a “Jaylen problem.” More so a “this specific version of Jaylen in this specific game” problem. Which isn’t a problem I’m all that worried about.

Because we’ve seen the other version of JB all season — controlled, efficient, decisive. That version has been real and consistent, and it’s why this one stood out so much. Nights like this feel jarring now because they’ve become so rare.

It also didn’t help that Dyson Daniels was glued to him for much of the night. That’s a real defensive presence they’ve got in Atlanta, the kind that makes every handle, every read, every decision just a little more difficult.

And maybe there’s something to the context too. Playing in Atlanta. Back in his hometown. Last time he was here, he dropped 41 points. This time, it felt a little like he was trying to recreate that instead of letting the game come to him.

He still finished with 29, 10, and 9. Very respectable considering how the night felt as a whole.

But this is the standard now. When you’re The Guy, the expectation goes way beyond baseline production. It’s control. Luckily, control will be much easier to come by in games where his co-1A teammate, Jayson Tatum, is also available.

4. Atlanta won the game where they always win it

This game was decided in the exact areas Atlanta wants to live in.

• Points in the paint: 48–30 in their favor.
• Field goal percentage: .467 vs .412 for the Celtics.
• Fast break points: 18–8 in their favor.

That’s been their formula for success during this 15–2 stretch.

The Hawks didn’t need anything fancy in this game. They got into the paint early and often, finished efficiently, and kept the Celtics from ever fully settling in defensively. Even when Boston made small pushes, Atlanta had a response ready — usually at the rim. It also doesn’t help when a guy who shoots 15% from three on the season goes 2/2 on the night. Just one of those games.

This is also what could make them annoying in a playoff series.

They don’t rely on one player to generate everything. It’s waves of pressure. Jalen Johnson attacking, Okongwu finishing, NAW creating chaos, Daniels forcing mistakes. It adds up over the course of a game.

Boston had moments where they slowed things down and made Atlanta operate in the halfcourt. When that happened, things looked manageable.

They just didn’t sustain it for 48 minutes.

5. The Celtics ran out of gas, which HAS to be okay

You could feel the shift.

First half, the energy was there. Everyone was flying around, guys were competing on the glass, the offense had flow throughout the first two quarters. It didn’t feel like the second night of a back-to-back at all.

Then the third quarter hit, and suddenly it did. This is where perspective is important.

In this game, the Celtics were missing several key pieces, playing their third game in four days, leaning heavily on highly inexperienced depth, and still competing deep into the game against a good team. Over an 82-game season, nights like last night are just the reality of a grueling NBA schedule.

If anything, the fact that this game stayed competitive for as long as it did says more about the Celtics than the final score does.

6. Amari Williams is a Brad Stevens project worth watching

You see it too, don’t you?

The size. The activity. The timing on rolls. The instinct to crash the glass. The flashes are absolutely there.

Amari Williams isn’t part of the playoff rotation. Let’s be clear about that. But nights like this are valuable for different reasons. They give you a glimpse of what’s being developed behind the scenes.

There were moments where, if you squinted a little, you could see the Timelord comparisons. The way he moves in space, the way he reads when to slip, the willingness to contest everything. Right down to biting on every pump fake.

This new Williams is rawer. Sure, there were a few missed assignments, some spacing issues, moments where the speed of the game caught up to him.

But the intangibles are obvious, and Brad seems to fare pretty well on projects that bring intangibles to the table. Let the Celtics player development team take it from here!

7. Enjoy this beautiful basketball sequence courtesy of Charles Bassey. ENJOY IT.

No words for this one, just enjoy this fun sequence from Summer League darling, Charles Bassey, that came during the 2nd quarter. Because you still deserve joy in this world.

8. Baylor Scheierman is becoming the ultimate plug-and-play piece

Baylor Scheierman is turning into exactly the kind of player this team will always need.

You can drop him into almost any lineup, against almost any matchup, and he’ll find a way to contribute. In this game versus Atlanta, that meant taking on Jalen Johnson defensively and holding his ground longer than he’d typically have to.

Easier said than done.

He competed, stayed connected, and didn’t look overwhelmed by bigger, stronger players. Offensively, he plays with a noticeable joy — which sometimes leads to a heat-check shot that makes Joe immediately look down the bench — but more often than not, it yields positive results rather than negative.

There’s a confidence there that you can’t really teach, and the Celtics are clearly starting to trust it.

9. The missed free throws added up

This one doesn’t need to be complicated.

16-for-23 from the line isn’t going to cut it.

This is a team that’s been one of the best in the league at the stripe all season, which is why it stands out when it slips. It’s not the reason they lost, but it’s part of the story.

You have to take your free points! They’re free! And they really hurt to miss out on in a game that was within reach for most of the night.

10. This game will be forgotten

In a week, you won’t remember this game. In a month, it won’t matter one bit. In a year, when you hear the name Luka, you might think of the one in Los Angeles before the one you were jumping out of your seat for tonight.

That might sound dismissive, but I say it in the hopes that it brings you comfort. This team has built enough equity over the course of the season that a game like this should just…pass through. No need for alarms, overreactions, or spiraling narratives. It’s too late in the season for that.

The game happened. It was frustrating at times. There were things to learn from.

Move on to the next.

The Celtics are back in action Wednesday night against the Miami Heat.

Before you forget this one completely, just know it was part of the journey. Even if it ends up being one nobody talks about again (and don’t forget about me, as I exist only within the confines of this 10 Takeaways article. Fare thee well! And *ghost voice* gooOOooOOOoo Celtics!)