When will this 8 game losing streak come to an end?

The Boston Celtics have now dropped eight straight games, their longest losing streak since the well documented 18 game skid in 2006-07. The streak has dropped the Celtics to the fifth worst record in the NBA… or bumped them up to the fifth most ping pong balls depending on where you stand.

We have been calling this the season of the unknown all year, who knows how the league (particularly the Eastern Conference) will shake down this season? A month ago Boston was the favorite to win the Atlantic Division, now they are competing for the top overall pick in the draft! Think about that for a second…

With so much uncertainty across the league, let alone about when the Celts' best player will return, it's impossible to really predict where they will finish in April. What we can do is try and predict the short term, like how long this losing streak could go on for.

After their brutal trip out west, the green return home Monday night to play the Houston Rockets. Boston's 109-85 loss in Houston was one of the uglier losses of the season, the game was practically over after the first quarter. Although Brad Stevens' club will be looking for revenge, they may simply be too overmatched to get any against Dwight Howard and James Harden. The Rockets push the streak to nine.

Wednesday night when Toronto comes to Boston looked promising on the schedule a few weeks ago - fast forward and the Raptors are one of the hotter teams in the league. Obviously the Raptors are not an elite team or anything, but they have been trending in the complete opposite direction as the Celtics. At 18-17 the Raptors are now the fourth team with a winning record in the east, sad but true. The streak gets to double digits Wednesday.

Friday night things get interesting when the Kobe-less Lakers come to town. The Celts should be able to pull this one out, and if they don't? Good thing they have the Orlando Magic on Sunday. So although the losing streak should not make it past the weekend, it would not be a surprise at all to get up to 10 or 11 straight losses.

It's stretches like this that bury teams lower and lower into the lottery, don't think for one second Danny Ainge is complaining. His team has remained competitive while also taking a page from the 2006-07 squad… and that losing streak is arguably responsible for the 2008 championship banner.

Maybe one day we can look up at another banner that represents this current losing streak.

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