{"id":513246,"date":"2026-03-09T16:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T16:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/513246\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T16:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T16:09:08","slug":"why-this-weeks-brutal-schedule-is-toughest-test-yet-for-surging-celtics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/513246\/","title":{"rendered":"Why This Week’s Brutal Schedule Is Toughest Test Yet For Surging Celtics"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boston Celtics<\/a> are rolling<\/a>. Not only are they\u00a019-6 over their last 25 games, but they also got Jayson Tatum back<\/a> over the weekend, cruising to a pair of easy wins against the Dallas Mavericks and Cleveland Cavaliers in his first two games back.<\/p>\n

The Celtics get a day off on Monday to catch their breath before their biggest test of the season this week: back-to-back road games against the two best teams in the NBA.<\/p>\n

Boston visits the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday, who have the league’s second-best record at\u00a047-17 and third-best net rating. The Spurs have been even hotter than the Celtics lately, going\u00a015-1 over their last\u00a016 games.<\/p>\n

Then Boston faces the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday. The Thunder have the league’s best record at\u00a050-15 and are also hot after winning 10 of their last 12. They also have the NBA’s best net rating and top defensive rating.<\/p>\n

Both games are potential NBA Finals previews for the Celtics. Oklahoma City has the shortest championship odds at DraftKings Sportsbook at +140, while Boston has the second-best odds at +550. San Antonio has the fourth-best title odds at +850, with the Denver Nuggets sandwiched between them and the Celtics at +600.<\/p>\n

Boston’s been one of the best road teams in the NBA this year, going 22-11 away from TD Garden. The Celtics already lost their first game against the Spurs in January, falling\u00a0100-95 at home. This will be their first time facing the reigning champs this season.<\/p>\n

If Boston can win one of those games or at least keep them close, it will cement its status as a legitimate title contender heading into the final month of the regular season.<\/p>\n

More NBA:\u00a0Celtics’ NBA Title Odds Soar After Jayson Tatum’s Encouraging Return<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Boston Celtics are rolling. Not only are they\u00a019-6 over their last 25 games, but they also got…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-513246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}