Author Topic: Celtics Playoff Seeding Thread  (Read 93586 times)

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Re: Celtics Playoff Seeding Thread
« Reply #270 on: March 19, 2017, 01:38:28 AM »

Offline j804

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Miami could easily end up the 6th or 7th seed, no point in trying to avoid them, just get the best seed possible.

With the Bucks losing tonight, Miami is now the 7 seed.  Not that far behind Indiana either (2 games in the loss column).

Miami has a tough game vs Portland tomorrow, and Waiters is likely out with an ankle sprain.  But the game is in Miami and their two most important players (Dragic/Whiteside) have been balling out.  Should be a good matchup, as both teams are fighting for their 'playoff' lives, and I especially look forward to Lillard v Dragic and Nurkic v Whiteside.  CJ might be the difference, although the Johnson brothers (Tyler and James) have been playing really good too.

Boston needs to just focus on winning their own games and whatever happens, happens.  But if there was one team to avoid, it's obviously the Heat.  This isn't just some streak they are on, watching their games and looking deeper into the numbers this is more likely far closer to what they are than their early season, injury plagued, poor play may have alluded to.  People dismissing the Heat aren't paying enough attention to reasons behind Miami's success of late.
i don't remember who played when we last faced them we might have been missing some guys, still didn't it take like 40 from Isiah to put them away? I don't wanna see them you know Hassan will feast on the likes of Amir/Kelly at least 2-3 games in the series 
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Re: Celtics Playoff Seeding Thread
« Reply #271 on: March 19, 2017, 11:19:33 PM »

Offline jpotter33

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Lakers up 7 on the Cavs in the 4th. Would kind of be hilarious if cleveland kept us in the race for the 1 seed once again with a bad loss. However, I don't expect this to be sustainable for the Lakers.

Re: Celtics Playoff Seeding Thread
« Reply #272 on: March 21, 2017, 05:27:48 PM »

Offline jpotter33

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Team            Record  Games Back

1. Cleveland     46-23    0
2. Boston        45-26    2
3. Washington 42-28    4.5
4. Toronto        41-29    5.5
5. Atlanta         37-33    9.5
6. Indiana         36-34    10.5
7. Milwaukee     34-35   12
8. Detroit         34-36   12.5
9. Miami           34-36    12.5

10. Chicago     33-37    13.5

Bold = games still yet to be played tonight/yet to be determined

Relevant Games:

Chicago at Toronto

Phoenix at Miami

Detroit at Brooklyn


After last night's win, Boston should be firmly entrenched in the number two seed for the rest of the season. They pretty much own the tiebreaker with the Wizards now for sure with a significantly better conference record, and it's doubtful that Toronto can make up 3.5 games the rest of the way with Boston having a pretty easy schedule.

But this brings up an interesting dilemma for us - Toronto is a very real threat to take over the number three seed from Washington due to owning the tiebreaker, which would set us up for a second round matchup with Toronto. That's not as ideal as a Washington matchup. Further, Washington's schedule down the stretch is much more difficult than Toronto's schedule:

Washington -
vs. ATL
vs. BRK B2B
@  CLE  B2B
@  LAL B2B
@  LAC B2B
@  UTH
@  GS
vs. CHA
@  NYK
vs. MIA
@  DET
@  MIA


Toronto -
vs. CHI
@  MIA
@  DAL
vs. ORL
vs. CHA
vs. IND
vs. PHI
@  IND B2B
@  DET B2B
vs. MIA
@  NYK
@  CLE

Complicating things even more is the possibility of us catching the Cavs for the number one seed, which is still very possible, though we can't have anymore brain-fart games like Phoenix or Philly. Our schedule is much easier than the Cavs' schedule the rest of the way, too:

Boston -
vs. IND
vs. PHO
vs. MIA
vs. MIL
vs. ORL
@  NYK
vs. CLE B2B
@  ATL B2B
@  CHA
vs. BRK
vs. MIL


Cleveland -
@  DEN
@  CHA B2B
vs. WAS B2B
@  SAS
@  CHI B2B
vs. PHI B2B
vs. IND
vs. ORL B2B
@  BOS B2B
vs. ATL
@  ATL B2B
@  MIA B2B
vs. TOR

With three back to backs left, I expect the Cavs to rest one or more of their stars on one of the games of each set of back to backs, so there's certainly some potential losses in there for them. As long as we play good ball the rest of the way, then we'll have at least a shot of overthrowing them for the number one seed, though we'll almost certainly have to beat them in Boston to get that seed.

So it's going to be a great race down the stretch for seeding purposes, and that's not even mentioning the tight race at the bottom of the playoffs, too!

Re: Celtics Playoff Seeding Thread
« Reply #273 on: March 21, 2017, 07:29:02 PM »

Offline mef730

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TP, as always, for a good post. Added bonus: The site is loading so slowly that, by the time this post is up, I'll be eligible to give you another TP.

Interesting note: CLE's last two games are against Miami and Toronto, two teams on the bubble for their current seeds. True, much of that is likely to be sorted out by the last couple of games  but, if it's still close, CLE won't be able to rest starters those last couple of games.

Mike

Re: Celtics Playoff Seeding Thread
« Reply #274 on: March 21, 2017, 07:31:32 PM »

Offline saltlover

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TP, as always, for a good post. Added bonus: The site is loading so slowly that, by the time this post is up, I'll be eligible to give you another TP.

Interesting note: CLE's last two games are against Miami and Toronto, two teams on the bubble for their current seeds. True, much of that is likely to be sorted out by the last couple of games  but, if it's still close, CLE won't be able to rest starters those last couple of games.

Mike

Cleveland will rest their starters and sacrifice seeding if necessary.  The question is what do the Celtics do if they could grab the top seed?

Re: Celtics Playoff Seeding Thread
« Reply #275 on: March 21, 2017, 08:08:47 PM »

Offline chilidawg

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I think if we beat the Cavs in our game with them, we'll get the #1 seed.  Toronto will edge the Wiz for the 3, with the hawks, pacers, bucks, and heat rounding out the field.

Re: Celtics Playoff Seeding Thread
« Reply #276 on: March 21, 2017, 10:09:59 PM »

Offline blink

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TP, as always, for a good post. Added bonus: The site is loading so slowly that, by the time this post is up, I'll be eligible to give you another TP.

Interesting note: CLE's last two games are against Miami and Toronto, two teams on the bubble for their current seeds. True, much of that is likely to be sorted out by the last couple of games  but, if it's still close, CLE won't be able to rest starters those last couple of games.

Mike

Cleveland will rest their starters and sacrifice seeding if necessary.  The question is what do the Celtics do if they could grab the top seed?

Who owns the tie-breaker between Clev and us?

Re: Celtics Playoff Seeding Thread
« Reply #277 on: March 21, 2017, 10:14:54 PM »

Offline Phantom255x

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Do we really want the #1 seed?

That could mean playing MIA first round, then either TOR or ATL (aka BAD match ups for this team and Lowry will return by then too).

#2 seed could mean playing DET first round (great match up for us) and WAS second round (and with home court advantage we'd have a pretty decent shot).
"Tough times never last, but tough people do." - Robert H. Schuller

Re: Celtics Playoff Seeding Thread
« Reply #278 on: March 21, 2017, 10:15:45 PM »

Offline fairweatherfan

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Basically a formality, but the Bulls loss officially clinches the Celtics a playoff spot!

Re: Celtics Playoff Seeding Thread
« Reply #279 on: March 21, 2017, 10:19:00 PM »

Offline MattyIce

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Do we really want the #1 seed?

That could mean playing MIA first round, then either TOR or ATL (aka BAD match ups for this team and Lowry will return by then too).

#2 seed could mean playing DET first round (great match up for us) and WAS second round (and with home court advantage we'd have a pretty decent shot).

looking at the schedules i think toronto will get to 3rd
« Last Edit: March 21, 2017, 10:24:22 PM by matteo »

Re: Celtics Playoff Seeding Thread
« Reply #280 on: March 21, 2017, 10:19:35 PM »

Offline Phantom255x

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Do we really want the #1 seed?

That could mean playing MIA first round, then either TOR or ATL (aka BAD match ups for this team and Lowry will return by then too).

#2 seed could mean playing DET first round (great match up for us) and WAS second round (and with home court advantage we'd have a pretty decent shot).

looking the schedules i think toronto will get to 3rd

Possibly. That could change things I guess.
"Tough times never last, but tough people do." - Robert H. Schuller

Re: Celtics Playoff Seeding Thread
« Reply #281 on: March 21, 2017, 11:33:21 PM »

Offline jpotter33

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TP, as always, for a good post. Added bonus: The site is loading so slowly that, by the time this post is up, I'll be eligible to give you another TP.

Interesting note: CLE's last two games are against Miami and Toronto, two teams on the bubble for their current seeds. True, much of that is likely to be sorted out by the last couple of games  but, if it's still close, CLE won't be able to rest starters those last couple of games.

Mike

Cleveland will rest their starters and sacrifice seeding if necessary.  The question is what do the Celtics do if they could grab the top seed?

Who owns the tie-breaker between Clev and us?

Currently Cleveland does due to beating us head to head 2 out of 3 times.

However, we have 1 more game against them in Boston, and ultimately whoever wins that game will more than likely have the tiebreaker. If Cleveland wins that game, then they get the tiebreaker outright. If Boston wins that game, then it's more likely that we'll have the tiebreaker in the event of a tie in regular season records.

This is because it goes to conference records after head to head matchups. Right now, they have a slight lead in the conference record at 30-11 compared to our 29-13. However, 11 of their final 13 games are against the East, and with Boston being 3 losses back of Cleveland, in the event of a tie it probably means that Cleveland lost against several Eastern Conference teams while Boston did well against them.

So if we want the number one seed and/or the tiebreaker, we'll almost certainly have to beat Cleveland in the final game, along with take care of business against virtually all of the remaining Eastern teams we face (IND, MIA, MIL, ORL, NYK, CLE, ATL, CHA, and BRK). It's definitely doable, but we'll have to play good ball the rest of the way and hope that Cleveland loses several more games the rest of the season.

Re: Celtics Playoff Seeding Thread
« Reply #282 on: March 22, 2017, 12:38:35 AM »

Offline chilidawg

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Do we really want the #1 seed?

That could mean playing MIA first round, then either TOR or ATL (aka BAD match ups for this team and Lowry will return by then too).

#2 seed could mean playing DET first round (great match up for us) and WAS second round (and with home court advantage we'd have a pretty decent shot).

Miami could easily be the 6th or 7th seed.  You want to play the team that's playing the worst,   that will be whoever is 8th.

Re: Celtics Playoff Seeding Thread
« Reply #283 on: March 22, 2017, 12:39:29 AM »

Offline trickybilly

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Seems Celtics just clinched! Yay!
"Gimme the ball, gimme the ball". Freddy Quimby, 1994.

Re: Celtics Playoff Seeding Thread
« Reply #284 on: March 22, 2017, 12:50:56 AM »

Offline trickybilly

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Also, a lot of people here are worried about the first round.

If we can't beat Miami in seven, then we can't beat Cleveland in seven. Important thing is to get home court. Beat whoever.
"Gimme the ball, gimme the ball". Freddy Quimby, 1994.