Breaking Down The Celtics Orlando Schedule

It's really happening. No more wishful thinking. No more fear that somehow we wouldn't see this team finish out the season. We officially have the Celtics 8 game slate and just like I said a few weeks ago...I LOVE it.

When you look at how things are scheduled it's a little different from how their normal end of the season was scheduled to go. If you took their first 8 games in a row against Orlando teams it went like this

MIL/WSH/TOR/BKN/WSH/MEM/POR/MIA

Obviously this is a little different. Now, instead of playing the Wizards twice the Celts will face MEM in Game 7. That's interesting because who knows what that 8/9 seed situation will look like by then and as we all know the Celts own that MEM pick. Maybe winning that game forces MEM into the play in and then the NBA rigs it for Zion and boom, MEM somehow gets insane lottery luck and that pick moves to an unprotected pick in 2021. That's a long shot but whatever I'm running on pure adrenaline right now.

This schedule also tells us they'll be facing MIA much earlier which matters. You see originally they were supposed to play in Game 8 if you went by their schedule. By then who knows, the seeding might have already been locked up and maybe MIA rests guys for the playoffs. But now? Well now you can throw that out the window. Especially with there being just a 2.5 game difference between the two. You're going to get MIA's best effort. Same exact thing with POR.

I see all this as a positive and here's why. I want these 8 games to truly be a test leading into the playoffs. I want to play the best teams early while everyone will be going 100%. I want to see what this Celtics team is made of. Prove to me what we saw during the year wasn't a fluke and that you got stronger with this time off so by the time the playoffs roll around you are battle tested. The last thing any Celts fan should want is a cake walk through the 8 games into the playoffs. You don't learn shit when that happens. Sot he fact that the Celts schedule is tougher to start is perfect in my opinion. 

Earn your hype. 

It's also a little interesting that they play TOR in Game 5, while it'll be Game 4 for the Raptors. Heading into that game TOR plays LAL/MIA/ORL. They then close with MEM/MIL/PHI/DEN. If the Celts take care of their own business and get a little help from LAL/MIA, that matchup is going to be pretty big in terms of that 2 seed. Just something to keep an eye on.

Either way, it feels great to actually see the schedule in real life. We're one step closer and I cannot fucking wait.