The Celtics have a good shot at winning the division, despite Bill Simmons jinxing the Heat game tonight

On Friday I wrote a piece for Celtics Life breaking down how the Celtics could still end up winning the Atlantic Division title, their 6th in a row.  They Knicks are in a free fall; 3 of their best players are hurt and they've lost the first 4 games of their current west coast trip.  The Nets did Boston a favor by unexpectedly losing at home to Atlanta last night, and they are about to head out on a tough 8 game road trip themselves.  Boston now trails New York by just 2.5 games, and Brooklyn by only one and a half.  Luckily for the Celtics, they don't need to win tonight (I projected them to win 13 of the final 18, but that included a loss to Miami this evening) to win the division, but if they do it would go a long way towards increasing their odds.

Kevin Garnett isn't going to play, but I honestly don't think that hurts their chances of beating Miami too much.  You can read more about this in my game preview for CLNS Radio.  What I don't like though is this ridiculous coincidence of the Celtics ending the Rockets 2nd-best-in-NBA-history 22 game winning streak exactly 5 years ago today, March 18th, 2008.  Now that everybody's aware of that stat I feels like it's ruined some of Boston's underdog mojo/karma.  Similarly, I hate the fact that Bill Simmons went on ABC yesterday and guaranteed the C's would end the Heat's 22 game winning streak tonight:

About a minute later Simmons did say he wasn't really guaranteeing a Celtics victory, but still the damage was done.  I'm about to head off to the Garden.  This game could be huge, or totally insignificant; but either way I think it's a no-lose situation for Boston.

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