Celtics Officially the Favorites to Win the Eastern Conference: Who Are Their Biggest Rivals?

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Back when Jayson Tatum was being helped off the floor at Madison Square Garden, right Achilles tendon in tatters during Game 4 of that bitter conference semifinals defeat to the Knicks, the Celtics' talisman took his side's NBA Finals hopes with him to the IR. Fast forward ten months, and he's now brought them right back to TD Garden with him. 

A modest 15 points in a rusty return in the victory against the Mavericks allowed Beantown to dream again. Since then, Boston has gone from strength to strength, mounting a 7-1 run through their last eight games, culminating in Tatum dropping a season high 32 points on the Charlotte Hornets in a 114-99 victory in North Carolina on March 30th. Unsurprisingly, online betting sites are now slashing odds on the Celtics returning to the promised land this term. 

Boston went from +8000 title odds at the season's open to +550 post-debut, leapfrogging half the field in a single weekend. When it comes to the Eastern Conference specifically, those odds are even shorter, with Lucky Rebel Sportsbook listing them as the clear +190 favorite to scoop the crown and return to the NBA Finals. But who are considered the biggest threats to their seemingly impending coronation out East? Let's take a look. 

Cavaliers: +275

Here's what the 46-28 record doesn't tell you: the Cavaliers front office made a decision this season that fundamentally rewired who this team is. Darius Garland — the architect of Cleveland's 64-win masterpiece last year; the floor general who made their half-court offence historically lethal — is gone. Shipped to the Clippers in exchange for James Harden at the trade deadline. On paper, a savvy, win-now swing. In practice, the system suffers for it. 

Mitchell still detonates. Mobley still protects the paint. But Garland's playmaking creation — the kind that made Cleveland's half-court offence historically difficult to scheme against — hasn't been replaced. Harden gives them a second ball-handler and the occasional brilliant sequence, but he won't be guarding Boston's wings in a second-round series, and the moment Joe Mazzulla starts hunting him on defense — because he will — Cleveland's closing lineup becomes a liability. 

Should Celtics fans be worried? Mitchell's clutch gene is genuine; Mobley is legitimately two-way, and this roster still carries back-to-back top-seed pedigree. But a team that traded its future for a fading star and now enters the playoffs mid-recalibration is a second-round opponent Boston should be welcoming, not dreading. 

Knicks: +450

The tabloids were screaming in January. Karl-Anthony Towns was serenaded with boos from the notoriously fickle Big Apple crowd through a catastrophic nine-game stretch, averaging just 17.7 points at 43.7% while the Knicks stumbled through a 2-9 slide that had message boards calling the Mike Brown experiment dead on arrival. Jalen Brunson's ankle buckled in Sacramento in mid-January, and for three weeks, it genuinely looked like the championship window was cracking before it had ever truly opened. 

And yet — 48-26, third in the East: The Knicks are still right there. It's that resilience that should unsettle every Celtics fan who remembers how this story last ended. It was Brunson's squad that tore Tatum's Achilles from Boston's season last May, and it was at Madison Square Garden where the Celtics' title defense cratered. 

Can they really beat Boston in a seven-game series again? Let's be real: Brunson in a playoff series is one of the most uncomfortable matchups in the Eastern Conference. He's the most elite shot-creator on any team in this bracket — drawing fouls, manufacturing late-shot-clock buckets, orchestrating every critical possession with the kind of practiced calm that turns series momentum in an instant. KAT is a nightmare stretch-five offensively; his defensive limitations are real and exploitable, but you have to earn those possessions first. And Garden madness — the crowd, the history, the noise — is a legitimate factor in a seven-game war. 

Brunson's ankle has been a recurring issue throughout March. If he walks into the postseason at 85%, the Knicks are manageable. If he arrives fully healthy and locked in, they're the most infuriating opponent Boston could possibly draw. Don't sleep on them because of January's chaos. Teams that survive chaos and keep winning are precisely the ones that haunt you in May. 

Detroit: +650

Nothing in the Eastern Conference this season has been more electric — or more gutting — than Detroit. Nobody predicted this. +1200 longshots in October, 44-38 last season, first-round exit, modest rebuild expectations. Then Cade Cunningham became the NBA's best story, logging 24.5 points and 9.9 assists per game, and J. B. Bickerstaff built a legitimate defensive machine — 109.9 defensive rating, 54 wins, the franchise's first 50-win season in 18 years.

Then March 18th happened. Cunningham takes a collision, leaves the game, and two days later, the Pistons announce the diagnosis: left lung pneumothorax. A collapsed lung. Minimum two weeks out, maybe longer. Playoff opener availability now genuinely uncertain. The most important player on the conference's best team — the one player who makes their offense breathe, who creates everything for everyone around him — was sidelined with a medical emergency twelve days before the bracket locks. The timing is brutal. 

Here's the uncomfortable Celtics-fan question: Do you actually want to face a wounded Detroit team? A desperate, cornered Pistons squad with a chip on their shoulder, Cunningham potentially returning on a minutes restriction, and an entire franchise's first genuine playoff moment arriving under a storm cloud of uncertainty. They will be out to prove that they're up to the challenge even without their main man, and one thing that Detroit as a sporting city does is thrive as an underdog. With or without Cunningham, they're dangerous. 


R. Simms
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