The Celtics (22-15) sit fifth in the East. The next team in the standings is the Heat (18-18), and from there the conference devolves into a sub-.500 collection of flotsam and jetsam. Even Miami, while just 3.5 games back, doesn’t appear to be a threat to Boston’s top-five status.
The question, however, is where the C’s belong among that upper-tier. They’re only a loss behind the Sixers (25-14) for fourth and trail the Pacers (25-12) by three games for third, but they’ve lost ground to everybody by going just 5-5 the past two weeks.
Collectively, there remain problems with consistency that could be tied to the evolving nature of roles and a rotation that’s still taking shape.