The Celtics sewed up the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference on Friday. Now, they await the identity of their first-round playoff opponent, which won’t be revealed for another few days.
As the second seed, Boston will face the winner of the 7 vs. 8 play-in game. Three teams remain in contention for those spots entering the final day of the NBA regular season: the Orlando Magic, Philadelphia 76ers and Toronto Raptors.
The Magic, who will visit TD Garden on Sunday, currently sit seventh in the standings. They’ll be hoping to vault to sixth and secure an official playoff berth, which they can do with a win over the Celtics and a Raptors loss to the 20-61 Brooklyn Nets. For the eighth-place 76ers to jump out of the play-in, they would need to beat the Milwaukee Bucks and have Orlando and Toronto both lose.
The Raptors control their own destiny: beat the Nets, and they can finish no lower than sixth. Since Brooklyn ranks among the NBA’s worst teams and will have no incentive to win on Sunday, the Celtics likely will see either Orlando or Philadelphia in their first playoff series, which tips off next weekend on Causeway Street (date TBD).
The former would be a rematch of last year’s opening-round series, which Boston won in five bruising, hyper-physical games. Without the talent to match the Celtics’, the Magic played bully ball, committing a slew of flagrant fouls — including one that sidelined Jayson Tatum for one game with a sprained wrist — and successfully limiting Boston’s 3-point volume.
Orlando did not take the leap many pundits expected this season after swinging a blockbuster trade for Desmond Bane, but it heads into the playoffs with momentum, carrying a five-game win streak and a mostly healthy roster into Sunday’s regular-season finale. The Celtics won two of the teams’ first three meetings, all in November.
The Celtics and 76ers also played three early-season games, with Boston taking the only recent matchup 114-98 on March 1. Philly has beaten just one top-six team from either conference (Minnesota, twice) since the start of February and lost its former NBA MVP center this week when Joel Embiid underwent emergency surgery for appendicitis.
Embiid’s availability for a potential first-round series remains unclear.
The 7 vs. 8 game will be played Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. ET at the home of the higher seed. The Celtics will have at least five days off before their series tips off.
“I think you sit back and you have an appreciation of the work we put in and the growth we’ve made this year to get to this point and the honor of reaching a top seed, when many people didn’t believe in that,” guard Payton Pritchard said after Friday’s 144-118 win over the New Orleans Pelicans. “You take a second and take that in, and then after a couple of days, you get back to work, and you’ve got something else to prove now.”
The upstart Charlotte Hornets, who own the NBA’s best net rating since Jan. 1, are locked into the 9 vs. 10 play-in game, where they’ll either host or visit the Miami Heat, depending on Sunday’s results. Neither Charlotte nor Miami can face Boston in the first round or the Eastern Conference semifinals.