So what's the ideal playoff seeding scenario?

[Androslav]

1. Miami
2. Philadelphia
3. Boston
4. Milwaukee
5. Chicago
6. Cleveland
7. Brooklyn
8. Toronto

This is what id like to see;

1R
- Celtics get a good, but relatively easier 1st round opponent in Cleveland
- We get to see Nets vs 76ers right away
- Miami and Toronto duel. Top tier coaches battle it out
- Milwaukee and Chicago is a nice 4:5 matchup

2R
- Celtics hopefully play vs BKN or PHI, I think we can do well against both or at least fight hard
- MIA vs MIL part 3 - yummy!

[Sophomore]

This ^ is very good and I am for it.

I’m a little torn; might actually prefer to swap Boston and Milwaukee so we are in the 4 seed. We get Miami in the second round, and if we get through that we get Philly, Bklyn, or Milwaukee in the ECF.  That feels like the right “big boss” fight to get out of the conference.

[Vermont Green]

This ^ is very good and I am for it.

I’m a little torn; might actually prefer to swap Boston and Milwaukee so we are in the 4 seed. We get Miami in the second round, and if we get through that we get Philly, Bklyn, or Milwaukee in the ECF.  That feels like the right “big boss” fight to get out of the conference.

This is exactly what I have been thinking.  If we can get to 4th (which is pretty realistic) we can have home court in the first round against likely CHI.  That would become a series we would likely be favored in.  Then, assuming MIA stays at 1, we get them instead of likely MIL, PHI, or BKN.  I think we have a better chance against MIA than any of those 3 teams.

If we get to 3, we still might play CHI (or maybe CLE) in the first round but then the second round gets tougher.  The one advantage could be if BKN ends up with the 7th seed and beats the 2nd seed, we get home court but I am not sure that BNK with one extra home game is better than MIA.

I know MIA has been good all year and they are well coached and usually tough in the playoffs but they don't have Giannis, Embiid, or Durant (not to mention Harden).  The second round for us if we can get there is going to be really tough no matter what.

[nebist]

Yeah, I agree with people who have said it would be best to be on the opposite side of the bracket of PHI, MIL, BKN. Miami is a very good team, and I respect them, but I don't think their high-end talent is quite on the level of those 3. Butler and Lowry also have a lot of miles on those tires, and if they get nicked up, that hurts Miami, who (like us) really need all their pieces functioning at a high level to be at their most dangerous.

Ideally, we host Chicago in round 1, then play Miami, and finally I would root for Philly to come out of the 2nd round and play them in the ECF. As amazing as Embiid and Harden are, both of them have had some struggles winning at the highest levels, and we seem to do a good job of making things difficult on Embiid (especially down the stretch of games).

Giannis and Durant, in my opinion, are the two most dangerous individual players in the conference still in terms of being able to win playoff games no matter what you throw at them, so if we can avoid those two that would be ideal.