The NBA released their opening week and Christmas Day schedules on Tuesday and the Celtics are featured a good bit.
They have a weird opening game in Detroit on Tuesday, October 20th at 3pm on NBC — it will be the first game played of the season.
However, it represents a good first test for the new look Celtics, who added Paul George, Mitchell Robinson, Mike Conley Jr. and Chris Cenac Jr. this summer, while seeing Jaylen Brown head out the door in the process.
Detroit also shook up their team, seeing
Tobias Harris, Isaiah Stewart and Caris LeVert depart while adding John Collins, Isaiah Joe, Gary Harris, Taurean Prince, and first round pick Ebuka Okoire. They’re also still waiting on Jalen Duren, who remains a restricted free agent but is expected to be back in Detroit next season.
I like the Joe addition and LeVert subtraction for Detroit and did not mind them moving off of Stewart. Paul Reed outplayed him in the playoffs, but I didn’t like the Collins move. This is a team that needed an upgrade as a secondary scorer and creator and Collins is a downgrade from what Harris gave them in that regard. He will also hurt their spacing if he slots in at the 4-spot. Duren and Ausar Thompson are bad shooters and adding another bad shooter is a weird move.
I still expect the Pistons to win a lot of games next season though. Maybe not the 60 they won last season, but this is a very good team.
Both these teams are going to be defined by their elite defenses. For the Celtics to make a deep run in the Eastern Conference playoffs, they are going to need to be built around one of the best defenses in the NBA — the same goes for Detroit.
This will be a good spot for both sides to show off their elite defenses and for each team’s best player to show off their offensive games.
Cade Cunningham has broken out over the last two seasons and has become one of the best players in the NBA. He has made the All-Star team the past two years and on All-NBA the last two years, including First Team last season. He is the guy that defenses try and stop on the Pistons and he still gets going anyways. I would expect that Paul George gets the first crack at guarding Cunningham.
In his first season back from a torn Achilles, the Celtics have become Jayson Tatum’s team. With Brown’s sudden departure, there is no more debating who the guy the Celtics are building around is, Jayson Tatum is the guy.
We all know how Tatum’s return was last season, perfect until he missed Game 7 vs. Philadelphia with left knee soreness. I expect Tatum to be awesome in his first full season back from the torn Achilles he suffered.
In the season series a year ago, the Celtics went 1-3 against the Pistons — Tatum did not play in any of the four games — and they will look to change that for the 2026-27 with an Opening Night win against Detroit.
