The Celtics moved past the Knicks for the No. 2 seed in the East
On Monday night, The Boston Celtics have improved to 23-12 with a comfortable home victory over the Chicago Bulls, 115-101. The big hero of this game was Anfernee Simmons, who scored 27 points, more than making up for a rare night off. by Jaylen Brown after his 50-point performance against the Los Angeles Clippers over the weekend.
That result, combined with the New York Knicks’ loss to the Detroit Pistons, dropped the Celtics into second place in the Eastern Conference, 3.5 games behind the top-seeded Pistons, far from where most fans thought they would be at this point in the season with Boston playing without its best player in the Jayson Tatum.
After the game, Celtics guard Peyton Pritchard talked about why the Celtics they are still not satisfied despite having failed expectations so far.
“I’m very proud to be first in the East. … That’s the main goal,” Pritchard said, per CelticsBlog’s Noah Dalzell on X, formerly Twitter.
In fact, the Celtics also boast the number one point differential in the East, thanks in large part to the number of wins they’ve accumulated over the past few weeks.
Brown has quelled any doubts about his status as a legitimate star in the league, putting up monster stat lines on a routine basis and with impressive efficiency, especially considering he’s usually competing against the opposition’s best perimeter defender.
Meanwhile, Pritchard and Derrick White have shaken off rough shooting early in the year to return to their usual form, and Boston has gotten strong contributions from some of its younger players, including Jordan Walsh.
It would still seem like a long shot that Tatum returns this season, but even with the team they have now, the Celtics seem more than capable of competing with anyone in the Eastern Conference.
2026-01-06 16:54:00
