Forest For The Trees: Celtics Are Not Worried About Seeds

The standings, like every other statistical number in sports, don’t lie.

And the standings are telling the Celtics that second seed in the East, and guaranteed home court advantage in the second round, are there for the taking in the final six games of the season.

Heading into tonight’s game with Atlanta, the Celtics lead the Magic by a game for second place in the East. Both teams have 19 losses with Boston ahead by two wins, 57-55. So Orlando has two games in hand on Boston, but the Celtics have fate in their own hands for the time being.

What does all that really mean to Doc Rivers as he tries to get Paul Pierce and Ray Allen some rest in the last two weeks?

“It’s human nature and obviously, we want it,” Rivers said at Friday morning’s shootaround. “Don’t get me wrong, I really would like to get the second seed but I don’t worry about it a lot. But the bottom line is you’ve just got to play and you’ve got to control your own destiny and whatever happens, happens.”

In other words, don’t expect to see Pierce and Allen playing 45 minutes, or even 40 for that matter, just to get the number one seed.

His younger players like Glen Davis and Rajon Rondo will have the chance to carry the load, especially with Kevin Garnett out for another week.

“We just try to go out there and play the game how it’s supposed to be played,” Davis said. “We can’t worry about what the other teams are doing. We’ve just got to go out there and make sure we do what we need to do to go where we need to go. No matter where we are in the playoffs, we feel like we can compete with anybody and that’s just the way we feel.”

“First is probably out of reach even though Cleveland lost yesterday, we’re still 4 1/2 games out with eight to play,” Rondo added. “We’re not looking ahead to who we’re going to play in the first round but definitely, if we make it to the second round, we want to have home court advantage.”