The Most Important Games Remaining on the Boston Celtics Schedule

The Celtics are in a neck-and-neck race with the Knicks for the second seed, which means a lot of important games are coming up if they want to secure tiebreakers.

Dec 2, 2025; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson (11) defends Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown (7) during the first half at the TD Garden. Mandatory Credit: Brian Fluharty-Imagn Images | Brian Fluharty-Imagn Images

1. The Big One
2. The Division Games
3. The Conference Games

The Celtics are currently 35-19 and a half game ahead of the New York Knicks. There are 28 games left to play when they get back to it on February 19. Here’s a look at the most important remaining games on the schedule. 

The Big One

April 9 at New York Knicks

The first tiebreaker is head-to-head record. The Knicks lead the season series 2-1, so if they win this game, then they’ll own it. 

The biggest caveat here is that it might not matter by then, considering it would be the 80th game of the season. One of these teams might establish a bit of a lead by then, but if the Celtics and Knicks are still neck-and-neck, then the Celtics will need to win that game to force the NBA to move to the next one. 

Here’s a list of the top three NBA tiebreakers

• Better winning percentage in games against each other 
• Division leader wins a tie over a team not leading a division 
• Division won-lost percentage (only if teams are in same division)

Since the Celtics and Knicks are in the same division, they'll immediately skip to tiebreaker number three, which brings us to our next set of games.

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The Division Games

February 27 vs. Brooklyn Nets
March 1 vs. Philadelphia 76ers
April 1 at. Miami Heat
April 5 vs. Toronto Raptors

All of these games are important for the same reason. 

Right now, New York’s division record is 10-3 (.769 win percentage), while Boston’s is 7-5 (.583 win percentage). 

So if the Celtics want to have any chance at winning the tiebreaker against New York, they not only have to win that last remaining game, they probably also have to win all four of these. That would give them a 12-5 division record. 

The Knicks have two games against the Raptors, one against Boston, and one against Brooklyn. In this scenario, Boston’s win would give New York one loss to drop to 10-4. They’d need New York to lose at least one of those other three games so they could also finish 12-5 in the division. 

So winning every Atlantic Division game wouldn’t be enough to win the tiebreaker. They’d need New York to help them by going 2-2. If New York goes 1-3 or 0-4, then the Celtics would win that tiebreaker. 

If they end up tied, then they’d move to tiebreaker number four: Conference won-lost percentage. And wouldn’t you know it, both the Celtics and Knicks are tied at 24-13 right now. So that puts extra emphasis on these games: 

The Conference Games

March 2 at Milwaukee Bucks
March 4 vs. Charlotte Hornets
March 8 at Cleveland Cavaliers
March 14 vs. Washington Wizards
March 27 vs. Atlanta Hawks
March 29 at Charlotte Hornets
March 30 at Atlanta Hawks
April 3 at Milwaukee Bucks
April 7 vs. Charlotte Hornets
April 12 vs. Orlando Magic

Three games against the surging Hornets might be tough, and the Cavs game will be interesting now that James Harden is helping them find a groove, but there are a lot of winnable games there. 

The Knicks have Charlotte twice and one game to go against Detroit, so they will face the toughest team of the group. They also have a game against the Cavs coming up. So this will be a tough tiebreaker to win as well.

It might actually come down to the last game of the season, which would put these teams in an interesting position. Both teams face an Eastern Conference opponent on the final night of the season (New York hosts Charlotte). Both the Magic and the Hornets might have something to play for, and the Celtics and Knicks could be playing the seeding game based on how the standings look in the final week. 

All of this hinges on Boston beating New York in that April 9 game. We could be heading towards a crazy finish with this tiebreaker. 

Here are the final three tiebreakers, for your information. 

• Better winning percentage against teams eligible for the playoffs in own conference (including teams that finished the regular season tied for a playoff position) 
• Better winning percentage against teams eligible for the playoffs in other conference (including teams that finished the regular season tied for a playoff position) 
• Better net result of total points scored less total points allowed against all opponents (“point differential”)

For everyone’s sake, let’s just hope the Knicks lose a couple of division games so we don’t have to deal with this much math. 

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