After Reviewing The Celtics Schedule It's Fair To Say They May Never Lose
Ahh schedule day, there’s nothing quite like it. Everyone pulls it up and talks themselves into how their favorite team is about to break the NBA wins record. There’s no shame in this, everyone does it, but there’s just something about seeing the full 82 that just does it for me. It means training camp is one step closer which means preseason is one step closer which means the regular season is one step closer. It’s been a long ass few months since the Raptors won the whole damn thing and I’m ready for 2019-20 and everything that comes with it. I’ve fully removed all the bad shit from the 2018-19 Celtics season and I’m ready to overreact and buy in all over again. I combed though this bad boy like it was the first night of Hanukkah and if you’re an NBA guy I imagine you did the same with your favorite NBA team.
After glossing over the released schedule my heart says there may not be a loss on this entire thing, but after I take a deep breath here’s what stood out to me
Opening up with Philly
When will these morons learn. With all the excitement surrounding the Sixers you’d think they would want to start off on the right foot, not a team that has beat them like 27 of the last 28 times they’ve played or something ridiculous like that.
Another year of early road tests
Last season the Celtics opened with 4 of their first 6 on the road. This season it’s 5 of their first 9 and 10 of their first 16. Given that this team was 21-20 on the road last year, this isn’t insignificant. I think we can all agree it’s pretty important for the Celts to get off to a good start, and with road games in PHI/NY/CLE/CHA/SA that’s certainly possible.
Good news is once we get to the end of the year they will play almost all at home. Just 9 road games in the final 23, and 5 of the final 8 at home. In a conference that might be tight down the stretch, I’ll take all the home games I can get when it matters.
Mid November West Coast trip
This is another thing that’s similar to last year. If you remember, the Celts beat MIL on November 1st and then hit the road for a 5 game road trip. Kyrie missed a game winning layup in IND, then they hit the West coast and needed a prayer win in PHX to avoid going 0-4. The good news is we see GS first on that trip and the second night of a back to back in PHX which is ideal. The Celts will have a day of rest before both LAC and DEN to end the trip which I certainly appreciate.
Back to backs
Only 12 on the schedule which is great but only three have the second night at the Garden. The majority of their B2Bs are on the road so we’ll have to see Brad tap into the early years of his tenure when he was a B2B monster. Factoring in “load management”, this isn’t ideal.
National TV Games
Without knowing what may be flexed in the future, the Celts currently have 34 national TV games which feels about right. To be honest they never seem to play well on national TV so I’m fine with it. Things breaks down with LAL getting 43, GS with 42, LAC with 38, HOU with 38, PHI with 36, Boston with 34, and MIL with 33. To be honest MIL should have more than both PHI/BOS but that’s just one more thing to motivate Giannis which seems less than ideal. Raptors also dropped from 15 to 11 which makes sense since there’s no Kawhi.
Also, NO got 20 which you can thank Zion for.
Weird quirks
What the hell is going on in January where the Celts are on the road in ORL, then leave for NO, only to return to FL to face the Heat. Why not just flip NO/MIA?
Returns
Kyrie: November 27th (this is not on a B2B for BKN so Kyrie has no excuse)
Terry: December 22nd
Horford: December 12th
Mook: November 4th
Baynes: January 18th
Something tells me only Mook will be getting cheered. Personally I’ll cheer for Horford because despite him going to PHI he’s still the biggest free agent to ever sign with the Celtics in my lifetime, and I look forward to debating whether or not these guys deserve tribute videos. You know that’s coming.
All in all, we’re going to see a similar challenge for this year’s group that we all witnessed the Celts fail at last season in terms of their start. This team was .500 a month into the season, players were fighting with one another, rotations were all fucked up, the entire thing stunk out loud. We were waiting for them to snap out of it all year and they obviously never did. That’s why if they can survive the first month of the season and actually prove they can win on the road without fighting with each other, the rest of the season should go much more smoothly.
I hope.