Tim Bontemps Believes Celtics Are East Favorites For Excellent Reason
Bontemps points to Boston's best four players and their championship experience.
Tim Bontemps Believes Celtics Are East Favorites For Excellent Reason originally appeared on NESN . Add NESN as a Preferred Source by clicking here . Plenty of NBA analysts these days consider the Boston Celtics the favorites to ultimately represent the Eastern Conference in the 2026 NBA Finals.
With their 50th win on Sunday night over an impressive Charlotte Hornets squad, the Celts all but locked up the No. 2 seed. Jayson Tatum is improving on a game-to-game basis, and Boston has good health right now outside of Nikola Vucevic.
There’s no reason Boston shouldn’t be considered the favorite to win the East, especially with the postseason experience that Tatum and Jaylen Brown bring to the table. Don’t forget about guys like Joe Mazzulla, Derrick White, Payton Pritchard, and Sam Hauser, either — all of them were an integral part of the 2024 championship team, and they’re all still here, each being a better version of themselves than two years ago. This is a point that Tim Bontemps made on a new episode of the Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective podcast .
Basically, Bontemps said he’s rolling with the Celtics in the East because their “top four” guys all have title experience. “They’ve all been there and they’ve all done it,” Bontemps said. “None of these other teams in the East have, and I’m picking them right now to win the East, but they’re certainly not an unassailable favorite.