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The Celtics season continues, but what will they play for?

After a few months in limbo, the Boston Celtics have officially figured out when to play basketball and who they’re going to be playing against. With that settled, the Celtics now have to figure out what exactly they want to achieve in the eight remaining games of this pandemic-shortened regular season.

The Celtics start with their toughest challenge, July 31stst Play against the Milwaukee Bucks who have virtually locked up the top seed in the Eastern Conference. After this game, which promises to be a dramatic game, the Celtics will compete against the Portland Trail Blazer, the Miami Heat, the Brooklyn Nets, the Toronto Raptors, the Orlando Magic, the Memphis Grizzlies and the Washington Wizards. In theory, the second seed could still be in the game, at least until you play against the Raptors. If they lose it, their long shot chances would go to zero.

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In truth, they shouldn’t really be trying to overtake the Raptors, just trying to win enough not to fall out of third place. They are now two games ahead of the heat in the profit column. Even if they stumble, it would not be a disaster. As we discussed earlier, home advantage doesn’t really come into play if you hold all of your games in Walt Disney World. In theory, the Celtics want the easiest route to the conference finale, but given the circumstances, we may not even really know what that would be. After such a long break, those profit-loss records may not mean much when basketball action resumes in late July.

This leads us straight to the reason why these games will be incredibly important to Boston. The current rating might as well be relics from a bygone era. The real story for the Celtics will be whether or not they will be the same impressive team after a break that essentially doubled as a de facto off-season. It might make more sense for fans to approach this upcoming game as if they were just unusually competitive warm-up exercises. The fact that the stands will be completely free of fans will only reinforce this idea.

There is at least one reason for Celtics fans to be optimistic: Maybe they will finally see all of their key players healthy and share the same field, which we did not see that often before the break. Before the coronavirus pandemic hit the breaks of the season, the Celtics had a devilish time protecting their key players from injury. So in these upcoming games, it’s not just about the Celtics shaking out the rust, it could also be our first in-depth look at what they are with all the healthy.

One thing is certain here, these eight games will essentially be preparation for those who really count in the playoffs. The first goal of the Celtics is not to lose any important players, which will be more difficult than usual given the fast turnaround. After that, they need to make sure they have the same chemistry that developed before the shutdown. After that, it’s about going into the off-season with a little momentum. How you start this next game path may be much less important than how you end it.

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