Can Surging Celtics Keep Rolling With Soft Schedule?
The Boston Celtics are in a good spot heading into Monday night’s home game against the Indiana Pacers.
The Celtics took care of business over the weekend, winning both ends of their back-to-back against the Miami Heat and Toronto Raptors on Friday and Saturday. Meanwhile, the Heat, Raptors and Atlanta Hawks all lost on Sunday, giving Boston a boost in the standings during its off day.
The Celtics are now third in the Eastern Conference at 17-11. They’ve been playing great basketball lately, going 12-4 over their last 16 games. They’re also well-rested after playing just two games in an 11-day span earlier this month.
Boston is poised to keep rolling, too, thanks to its soft schedule. The Celtics have seven straight games coming up against opponents with sub-.500 records, starting with tonight’s game against the hapless Pacers, who are 6-22.
Boston then gets three days off before hitting the road for a five-game road trip against Indiana, the Portland Trail Blazers, the Utah Jazz, the Sacramento Kings and the Los Angeles Clippers, who have a combined .300 winning percentage entering play on Monday.
The Celtics should win most, if not all, of those games, especially since they don’t have any back-to-backs during their road trip. If they take care of business, they have a chance to put some distance between them and the rest of the East for the No. 3 seed and potentially gain some ground on the two teams ahead of them — the Detroit Pistons and New York Knicks.
That starts tonight, where Boston will host a slumping Pacers team that has lost four straight games and ranks 28th in net rating. Indiana has looked lost this season without Tyrese Haliburton, whereas the Celtics have persevered without Jayson Tatum and still have the league’s seventh-best net rating.