Bostons road to finals

[brackdan70]

The East is incredibly weak. Out West Boston would be a 1st or at best 2nd round exit.

Why do you think that? They had the best record against the West.

[bovice]

it sucks how often players are injured now. when a team wins a championship and they didn't play any legit contenders, it's underwhelming. if boston ends up playing an injured west team it'll be disappointing. 2015 warriors all over again.

[bovice]

the nba and fans really need to push for a top 16 playoff format. 2nd and 3rd round would be so much more interesting

[Darth Celtic]

Not Celtics fault they are only contender in east.

[BrianInPhilly]

Indiana about to get thoroughly handled. Even if they take one of the first two games, there’s too many glaring weakness on that team

What exactly is the glaring weaknesses? I’d say rebounding is their main flaw but with Porzingis banged up not like Boston will be dominating the boards.

[nbafan38]

The point of the thread wasn't to fault the celtics but to actually provide statistical data that their opponents are the weakest in the last 30 or so years based on odds unless you think this team is as good as the 1997 bulls or 2017 warriors.

[kuclas]

You can only play who is in front of you.

Yes Boston has easy road to finals. But they would have been favored over any healthy Knicks bucks sixers team anyways. Or even a healthy heat team.

[lessthanjake]

They are >-1000 favorite in every single series in the east playoffs? Has that ever happened before?

The 2017 Warriors were -7000, -3200, and -1050 in their playoff series before the Finals (and that -1050 was the Spurs, who had Kawhi get injured almost immediately in the series).

The 1997 Bulls were -2500, -1700, and -1700 in their playoff series before the Finals.

There may be others. Of course, those were teams that had already been champions, so them having those incredible odds was probably more reflective of confidence in those teams than the Celtics odds (which reflect some amount of confidence in them, but also the weakness of their opponents). Indeed, both those teams actually faced 60+ win teams before the Finals.

There’s others that were close. For instance, the 2013 Heat were close to this, with -20000, -3000, and -850. The 2015 Warriors had odds of -3000, -1000, and -880. We don’t have odds going back throughout the 1980s, but I imagine a team like the 1987 Lakers might’ve been had odds like this too.

[Johnny Fontane]

Indiana about to get thoroughly handled. Even if they take one of the first two games, there’s too many glaring weakness on that team

What exactly is the glaring weaknesses? I’d say rebounding is their main flaw but with Porzingis banged up not like Boston will be dominating the boards.

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