East only has two teams with a winning record
Wild
While the West has nine. With Philadelphia and Milwaukee underperforming the East looks really thin.
Yeah. I will say though, Cleveland might be for real. In a playoff series with them I think we really need Porzingis back because their frontcourt can give us a ton of trouble.
If I had to rank our threats in the East, in order I'd say it's New York (if all healthy), Cleveland, then Indiana.
I would have PHI but I can already sense it's not gonna work for them. Embiid already hurt and getting frustrated, PG13 not a durable guy either, etc.
Patience in Cleveland seems to be paying off. However in a match-up the Celtics should be able to exploit the small backcourt of the Cavs (Garland-Mitchell) in the same way as they did to the Mavs (Irving-Doncic). Allen is a guy like White who doesn't look spectacular, but does a lot of things right and has an All Star level impact.
On another note, the good start by the Celtics is reflected in the advanced stats for a couple of perhaps surprising players. In the top 30 Win Shares (
https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2025_advanced.html) we have a Celtics five-man-unit:
Pritchard (13th) = Hield has a tremendous start as well, otherwise favorite for 6th MOTY
White (7th) = should obviously be chosen as an All Star
Tatum (2nd) = only Jokic (who else?) ahead of him
Horford (28th) = crazy at 38 years old still elite two-way player
Kornet (25th) = just like last season the advanced stats love The Green Kornet
Others:
Holiday (50th) = production is going down a bit
Brown (62nd) = very high volume shooting with bad efficiency is not rewarded (45 eFG%)
Queta (103rd) = pretty badass ranking considering the amount of minutes
Hauser (210th) = his shooting and overall level of play will probably improve again
