No home court, should the Celtics treat the 8 game season like preseason?

[themoneyteam2]

It sounds like they’ll treat it like preseason. Stevens keeps mentioning Aug 17th (playoffs) for when they need to be ready so I don’t think he’s too concerned about these seeding games.

They’re pretty much locked into the 3 seed, even if they go 4-4

[SichtingLives]

If I were Stevens I would design a specific plan that puts every player as close to April 18th shape and preparation as possible. I don't know what that entails in an 8 game schedule with everyone taking 4 months off. I don't know where each players game is at individually, I would expect them to be "on" when it's playoff time because they're pros but I would be more concerned with their conditioning being where it needs to be at the right time. I'd have to think almost all of these guys were keeping themselves ready and in good shape with the time off, like Scal was saying last night.

[ConstableGeneva]

I want to see reps between our top 7 as much as load management would allow. I think they have the night off against the Wizards if seedings are set by then.

I don't know if this is accurate but the Celtics have only played EIGHT games out of the 64 with all of Kemba, Smart, Brown, Tatum, Hayward, Theis, and Kanter suiting up. Here are the results for those games:
• @PHI L -14
• TOR L -16
• SAS L -15
• @PHI L -11
• NOP W +35
• LAL W +32
• @OKC W +1
• @HOU L -11

I still want to see what we can do when we have all of our top guys available. Those five double digit losses against really good teams are a bit disturbing.

[ConstableGeneva]

Here are our wins against the top 6 teams of each conference:
• MIL, +11, no Brown & Kanter
• TOR, +6, no Kanter
• @TOR, +16, no Smart
• MIA, +19, no Hayward, no Smart
• @MIA, +8, no Kanter, no Tatum
• @IND, +3, no Brown
• PHI, +21, no Kanter, no Kemba
• LAL, +32, complete
• LAC, +8, no Brown
• DEN, +13, no Hayward
• @UTA, +11, no Kemba
• @OKC, +1, complete

We went 12-13 against the top 6 of either conference.

[Ernest]

Seems like it is all about risk. One on hand if we go all out for 8 games the risk a good player gets hurt goes up a bit. On the other hand if we wait til the playoffs to turn it on then we might not be able to.

I'd say treat the first few games as dead serious and then reevaluate. See where we are in the standings, see if everyone has played well. I don't buy that the injury risk goes up that much- guys can get hurt off the court too and in practice- thats basically luck.

I would like to see us keep Tako happy and give him a few games to play. I want him back next season as if he can ever put things together he could be pretty good.