The NBA season is back and will kick off with an afternoon matchup between the Boston Celtics and the Detroit Pistons. The Celtics needed to decide this last offseason between who will lead their team this season: Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown. Boston decided Tatum is their guy and traded Brown to Philadelphia for Paul George. The Celtics will now have a new look with Tatum, George, and Mitchell Robinson as their center.
The Pistons are coming off a season where they finished as the top seed in the Eastern Conference, but had an underwhelming playoff showing. Detroit needed seven games to take down the Orlando Magic in the first round, and ended up getting eliminated in the following round against Cleveland in seven games. The offense became underwhelming, especially from Jalen Duren. Duren and Cade Cunningham will be looking to build off Detroit’s overall success from last year.
The good news for the Celtics is that Jayson Tatum has fully recovered from his Achilles tear that he suffered two seasons ago. We should see Tatum at full strength to start the season. Instead of dealing with an injury, Tatum will need to worry about adjusting to the new pieces around him. Boston may need the first 10-15 games of the season to adjust for the loss of Brown. George will start the season at the age of 36 years old. He showed last season he can still go at a high level, but this is a change coming very late in George’s career.
The Pistons will ultimately have the same roster as last year, outside of some minor additions such as Isaiah Joe and John Collins. I believe we will see the Pistons return to the regular-season juggernaut that they showed to be last season when they won 60 games. Detroit was one of the hardest teams to beat on their home court with a record of 31-9. I like Detroit to start their season off with a win as they begin their campaign to get back to the postseason and improve on their performance from last year.
Celtics vs Pistons prediction: Pistons +1.5 (-115) available at time of publishing. Playable to the ML.
