The Boston Celtics lost to the Washington Wizards 113-101 at Capital One Arena on Tuesday night in a potential first-round playoff preview, but we still don’t know who the C’s will play when the postseason begins Saturday.
A win for Boston on Tuesday would’ve dropped Washington to eighth in the Eastern Conference standings and locked the Wiz into a Round 1Â matchup with the top-seeded Toronto Raptors.
But the Wizards’ victory pulls them into a seventh-place tie with the Miami Heat at 43-38. They are one game behind the Milwaukee Bucks for sixth.
Here are the final regular-season games for those three teams:
Raptors at Heat: Toronto still has something to play for despite locking up the No. 1 seed. A win for the Raptors clinches their first ever 60-win season and homecourt advantage if they reach the NBA Finals and play any Western Conference team except the Houston Rockets.
Wizards at Magic: Orlando is one of the worst teams in the league and a loss for Washington puts them in eighth place as a result of having a worse conference record (first tiebreaker) than the Heat.
Bucks at 76ers: A win secures the No. 3 seed for the 76ers, so they still have something to play for.
It’s hard to believe the Wizards would lose to the lowly Magic when a win increases the chances of them playing an injury-ravaged Boston team in Round 1 instead of Toronto.
The Bucks-76ers game means more to Philadelphia because a win secures the No. 3 seed and guarantees it won’t play the Cleveland Cavaliers until a potential Eastern Conference finals matchup. It’s also unlikely the Cavs lose to the New York Knicks in their finale, and Cleveland has the tiebreaker over Philly.
With the Raptors clinching the second-best record by virtue of the Warriors’ loss to the Utah Jazz, all Toronto has to play for is securing a 60-win season. It wouldn’t be a shock to see them rest a majority of their starters Wednesday night. The Heat do have the tiebreaker over the Bucks and Wizards because of a superior conference record.
The best-case scenario for the Celtics is wins by the 76ers and Raptors, which would give Boston a first-round matchup with the Bucks and help the C’s avoid the Cavs until the conference finals, should they advance that far.
It’s going to be a wild final day of the season, that’s for sure.
Here are some other notes from Celtics vs. Wizards:
— Jaylen Brown scored a team-high 27 points, highlighted by a 21-point outburst in the first quarter. The C’s forward is averaging 19.3 points over five April games. He’s also shooting 51 percent from 3-point land since the beginning of March.
— Semi Ojeleye has hit eight of his last 14 3-point shots, which is a very encouraging sign for the C’s. The rookie forward’s shooting hasn’t been good for most of the season, but he still earns minutes because of his excellent one-on-one defense. He’ll be one of the guys who defends Giannis Antetokounmpo if the Celtics play the Bucks in Round 1, so if he can shoot with any consistency the C’s offense will be far more dangerous.
— Jayson Tatum and Al Horford are shooting 43.3 percent from 3-point range this season. That ranks fifth-best in Celtics history. Ray Allen’s 45.3 percent from deep in 2012 is the C’s record for a single season.
— Tuesday was the Celtics’ final road game of the regular season. They finish with an Eastern Conference-leading 28-13 road record. Washington has been a tough place for Boston, though. The C’s are 55-30 on the road since 2016, but only 1-6 in the nation’s capital.
— Wizards point guard John Wall became the first player in franchise history to reach 5,000 career assists. He was also the first to reach 4,000 assists.
