Before the start of the season, The Athletic’s Boston Celtics beat writer Jay King and New York Knicks beat writer James L. Edwards III discussed their thoughts on the Eastern Conference going into the new campaign, including predictions as to how they believed the season would shake out.
The two thought the East was the weaker of the two conferences but more intriguing. That looks to be true so far this season, but not in the ways either expected.
With the season’s halfway point now here, King and Edwards got back together, joined by national writer Fred Katz, to talk about what has happened in the East so far, what has surprised them and how they think things will shake out down the stretch.
Are you surprised by what Cleveland is doing?
Edwards: I’m always surprised when a team is on pace to win 70 games, so yes. However, I’m not surprised the Cavaliers are the best team in the East.
Last year, the team won nearly 50 games with Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley all missing 20-30 games individually. That was a good team with a good foundation under J.B. Bickerstaff. This season, the Cavs have been relatively healthy and have a new coach in Kenny Atkinson who has provided a different dimension offensively. Also, this roster is deep, with several rotation players having career seasons.
I’m a bit surprised the Celtics have had as bumpy a patch as they’ve had, but I can imagine it’s a bit harder to push through the regular season after coming off a championship. And I’m surprised by how inconsistent and vulnerable the Knicks have been, though that shouldn’t be too surprising given all of the moving parts over the last year.
Cleveland is the best team in the East right now, and I feel good about that being the case through the end of the regular season. As for the playoffs, I do wonder if they’ll be able to hide their guard defensively against the best teams in a series. But, until then, this is the best team in the East.
Katz: How could it not be? This is not a team leaping from good to very good, or even great. Cleveland is pacing to become just the third squad ever to win 70 games. The Cavs are wrecking the rest of the league in, if this keeps up, historic fashion.
I did not see the offense turning into one of the best attacks ever. And no, that’s not an exaggeration. The Cavaliers are averaging two points per 100 possessions more than anyone else in the NBA right now, a wide margin. They are near the top of the all-time, single-season list, too.
This was a team that struggled mightily with its two big men, Mobley and Jarrett Allen, on the court together last season. It couldn’t figure out the spacing with a couple of 7-footers who were not threats from deep. Atkinson’s arrival has changed that. The Cavs now excel with those two. Mobley is one of the NBA’s most improved players, even if the counting stats don’t show it. He’s a better playmaker and scorer. And there’s an argument to be made that Cleveland’s off-ball guys cut better than anyone else in the East.
Darius Garland is having the best season of his career, as is Caris LeVert, as is Isaac Okoro, as is Ty Jerome, as is Dean Wade. Mitchell remains an All-NBA performer. They shoot 40 percent — yes, that’s right — 40 percent from deep as a team. The Cavs are maxing out their talent.
So am I surprised they’re good? No, not at all. Just about everything went wrong last season, and they still won 49 games and a playoff series. But am I surprised they are challenging for one of the best regular seasons in the history of the NBA? Absolutely.
King: My dumbest prediction when we did this in the preseason (by far) was ranking the Cavaliers in seventh place. SEVENTH! I still believed in the Philadelphia 76ers and Milwaukee Bucks. I thought the Indiana Pacers would build on their trip to the Eastern Conference finals. And I worried that with a new coach, the Cavaliers might need some time to rebuild their foundation.
Wrong. Dead wrong. Kenny Atkinson has pitched a perfect game. The Cavaliers offense has been a symphony of cuts and jumpers. The backcourt is phenomenal. The frontcourt has never-ending length. What type of idiot would predict a seventh-place finish for this group?
I still wonder if certain Cavaliers defenders will become playoff vulnerabilities. I wonder if the team can sustain its season-long 3-point hot streak. I wonder if, in a playoff series, they’ll be quite as good as their record and net rating suggest. But everything this group has done suggests it’s a historically great club. Maybe I should just stop questioning the Cavaliers. It certainly didn’t work for me before the season.
Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland celebrate after a 3-point basket against the Oklahoma City Thunder. (Ken Blaze / Imagn Images)
Are you concerned about the Celtics’ chances of repeating as champions or as the Knicks as legitimate title contenders?
Edwards: I’m not concerned about the Celtics’ chances because, as I mentioned above, I imagine it’s difficult for a team to be as locked in or hungry during the regular season after just winning a championship. Boston is top-five in both offense and defense in the NBA. They’re just fine. Once the postseason comes around, I think they’ll retake the throne as the best team in the East because of their past postseason success and continuity
As for New York, the team that I cover, I don’t think they’ll be legitimate title contenders this season. I wrote right after the Karl-Anthony Towns trade that I’m not sure that the move makes New York better or worse, just different. The offense can compete with any team in basketball because of the high-quality shot-making it has in its starting lineup. However, the Knicks struggle to get up a lot of 3s and I’m not sure that’s fixable given the personnel on the roster and how some guys play.
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Defensively, this team has been too inconsistent. They are ranked 16th in the NBA, in large part due to a 3-point defense that has not been very good for much of the year, poor communication and gambling that takes things out of sync and there’s still no elite rim protector on the roster.
This always felt like a transition season for the Knicks. I’ll be surprised if they’re able to bring in any serious reinforcements before the deadline to help add some bulk to a thin bench.
New York just feels a year away from truly challenging Boston or Cleveland for one of the top two spots in the East.
Katz: Considering this is a Knicks question, I will quote one of Tom Thibodeau’s go-to mantras in response: I am concerned about everything. That includes the Celtics’ chances to repeat, as well as the Knicks’ ability to contend.
Boston is still the favorite, in my mind. This speed bump it’s hit lately seems more like January doldrums than a new norm. The rotations on defense aren’t as crisp. They’ve suffered some offensive lapses. And yet, I’m not sure it matters, considering the Celtics have already proven themselves.
We watched the Celtics blow through the Eastern Conference playoffs a season ago. That roster is still intact, still capable of playing the same way, and we’ve seen it this season, especially on the nights when 20-something 3s happen to fall. There’s an argument they’re deeper, considering Payton Pritchard is a Most Improved Player contender off the bench.
But the East isn’t a cakewalk anymore — not with the Cavs storming everyone and the Knicks employing more top-end talent.
That said, I couldn’t dub New York a favorite over either of the two teams ahead of it right now. The defense has hovered around the middle of the pack all season. Mikal Bridges has been hot-and-cold guarding the point of attack. Karl-Anthony Towns, while an All-Star shoe-in, is not your typical, Thibodeauian rim protector in the paint. The best teams, such as Cleveland or Boston, could place Towns and Jalen Brunson in pick-and-roll after pick-and-roll.
The Knicks can score, too. There’s an argument that the three teams currently at the top of the East are the three best offensive teams in the league. But it’s difficult to buy into them when they give up so many points.
King: The Celtics season won’t be defined by how they performed in December and January. That said, parts of their funk over the last month have been concerning. The starting lineup played broken basketball for several weeks. The outside shooting for that group, and the team at large, more or less disappeared. The net rating throughout the Celtics’ current 9-8 stretch actually looks fantastic (plus-9.0), but that’s all due to a few blowout wins. The consistency hasn’t been there.
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The bigger problem for the Celtics is that the rest of the league has improved. They were easily the class of the NBA last season. Now, the Cavaliers and Oklahoma City Thunder look like juggernauts and the Denver Nuggets are suddenly materializing into a threat again. Boston could still win a championship, but the path won’t be as easy as it was last season. Don’t expect another 16-3 run through the playoffs.
As for the Knicks, I don’t think they defend well enough to contend for a title. Most championship teams are elite on both ends of the court. New York has not been able to collect stops consistently enough. Maybe Mitchell Robinson’s eventual return will provide a fix, but to what extent? And will his body hold up? The Knicks’ lack of depth won’t matter as much in the playoffs, but, from the standpoint of whether they can win a championship, it’s alarming that their starting five has been so healthy and they’re still only 29-16 with a 6.0 net rating. That’s very good. Not quite great. Again, though, maybe Robinson’s the missing piece.
Is Mitchell Robinson the Knicks’ missing piece? (Wendell Cruz / Imagn Images)
Who has been the biggest surprise in the East so far?
Edwards: For me, it’s the Pistons, the team I spent seven years covering.
The last time we did this roundtable, I had Detroit going from a 14-win team last year to at least 24 or 25 this year, with the idea they could get to the low 30s. I was confident in Cade Cunningham taking yet another leap. I liked the veterans they added in the offseason, too. Furthermore, as bad as last season was, this wasn’t a 14-win team. That losing streak truly spiraled out of control. It’s hard to go from 14 wins to 30 wins in a season. In my eyes, Detroit was more like a 22-to-23 win team last season that had some truly bad luck and bad vibes.
With all that said, here we are, a week away from the end of January, and the Pistons have 23 wins and are currently the sixth seed in the East after beating Atlanta on Wednesday.
The front office led by Trajan Langdon did a tremendous job of adding capable veterans who wanted to be in Detroit. Bickerstaff has done an amazing job of getting the most out of those players every night. Cunningham has been one of the 10 best players in the NBA this season. Isaiah Stewart has been one of the best rim protectors in basketball.
This is a postseason team, whether through the Play-In or just making the playoffs outright. I’ve seen enough to believe that.
Katz: The Pistons. Going from 14 wins to above .500 in one season is not normal.
Cunningham is playing better than ever with more spacing around him, as was Jaden Ivey before he suffered that unfortunate leg injury. But mainly, the Pistons have become just a joy to watch.
They are hounds for 50-50 balls. They are physical. They share the ball and spread the floor. Cunningham is a master running an offense and he’s one of the best facilitators out of the pick-and-roll in basketball. Stewart could try to fight anyone’s grandma at any given moment — oh, and he’s playing the best ball of his career, too, with Detroit using him as a full-time center now. He’s never guarded this well. The analytics paint him as one of the NBA’s top rim protectors.
The Pistons aren’t just good. They’re fun. Last season, they were neither.
King: Detroit. The front office found a solid supporting cast. Bickerstaff laid the right foundation from Day 1. Cunningham is a stud. He navigates the floor brilliantly.
I thought the Pistons would improve because of their veteran additions. Their leap has been bigger than I expected.
Who has been the biggest disappointment in the East so far?
Edwards: Why can’t the 76ers just be normal? Something is always going on there.
Embiid isn’t playing very much and the roster is old and uninspiring. Coming into the season, I had the 76ers as one of the two teams I thought were most likely to dethrone the Celtics. Boy, was I wrong.
Philadelphia is double-digit games under .500 and might be better served blowing this thing up at the deadline as opposed to trying to salvage the scrap pieces.
Katz: The easy answer here is 76ers-themed: Either the Sixers themselves or maybe Paul George, who signed a max contract with them this summer and has underwhelmed on a sub-.500 team during Year 1. But I’ll deviate elsewhere, because if we’re talking about true disappointment — not the type where someone doesn’t meet your expectations but the type that you would feel when your parents were so angry at you they didn’t even bother to yell — then the answer is Miami.
This is the place where they stamp “Heat culture” onto their jerseys. It’s the home of Pat Riley and Erik Spoelstra, two of the most respected minds the game has ever held. The Heat were supposed to be impervious to drama. Now, they can’t get away from it.
No, I didn’t expect Miami to be much better than .500-ish this season. But Jimmy Butler is attempting to blow the organization to smithereens; Bam Adebayo is having an oddly down season; Jaime Jaquez Jr. has regressed from his rookie campaign.
The Heat just don’t look, sound or smell like the Heat.
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King: The 76ers.
Like James, I thought Philadelphia would emerge as one of the Celtics’ primary challengers. Instead, with Embiid missing most of the season, the 76ers have run into one disaster after another. Even when healthy, Paul George has been underwhelming. The role players, who I thought would complement the stars well, have been asked to do way too much because of all the injuries around them. The 76ers rank 21st in defense and 24th in offense. I’d like to see them at full strength, but don’t think they will ever achieve it. They’ve clearly just been cursed.
Call your shot: Who will be the top-10 seeds in the East when the regular season ends?
Edwards: 1. Cavaliers, 2. Celtics, 3. Knicks, 4. Magic, 5. Pacers, 6. Bucks, 7. Hawks, 8. Pistons, 9. Heat, 10. Bulls.
Katz: 1. Cavaliers, 2. Celtics, 3. Knicks, 4. Magic 5. Bucks 6. Pacers 7. Hawks 8. Pistons 9. 76ers 10. Bulls
King: 1. Cavaliers, 2. Celtics, 3. Knicks, 4. Pacers, 5. Bucks, 6. Magic, 7. Pistons, 8. Hawks, 9. Heat, 10. Bulls
(Top photo of Donovan Mitchell defending Jayson Tatum: Jesse D. Garrabrant / NBAE via Getty Images)
