Any coach will tell you not to look ahead at the schedule. I think if you asked each Celtics player, in a quiet moment some of them might admit to being interested in the Christmas Day game against the new look Magic. But the company line is that you focus on the next game.
Thankfully fans don't have that same constraint. We get to enjoy things like win streaks in the moment and daydream about how long they will last. So lets do some speculation, shall we?
As you are well aware, the Celtics have won 13 straight. The Heat saw their 12 game streak come to an end last night against Dallas who recently had a 12 game win streak snapped by the Bucks. The Spurs have the next longest win streak going at 9 in a row.
In theory the Celtics could go undefeated for the rest of the year and shatter the Bulls record. In theory you could place the words in front of any number of outlandish statements and get away with just about anything. That's journalism for you. But in reality, the Celtics are going to lose eventually. Now when it will happen, that's where the real fun begins.
Here is our upcoming schedule.
The Magic are (on paper) the best opponent in our next stretch of games but they are going to have to transition 3 major new pieces into their system (the three new players combined for just 27 points last night) and the Celtics are nothing if not a well oiled machine. After that, you have to look at New Orleans on New Years Eve, which could feature a matchup between Rondo and Chris Paul (assuming everyone is healthy). Of course in theory (there's that phrase again) any of the lower rung teams could play a great game and catch the Celtics sleeping. If not, then in theory we could be looking for win number 30 against the Spurs on Jan. 5th. Will both streaks still be going on by then? Doubtful, but fun to speculate on.