Celtics? Bucks? Cavs? Breaking down the top of the NBA's East (2024)

We are one month into the 2022-23 NBA season, and the race for the top seeds in the Eastern Conference has already sparked many questions. Teams continue to rise and fall through the standings in the first 15 or so games of the season.

Entering Wednesday, the Boston Celtics are No. 1 in the Eastern Conference with a record of 11-3. They are followed by the Milwaukee Bucks (10-3), Atlanta Hawks (9-5), Cleveland Cavaliers (8-5) and Washington Wizards (8-6).

The Athletic’s Cavs writer Kelsey Russo, Bucks writer Eric Nehm and Celtics writer Jared Weiss break down the top of the East with a focus on two preseason contenders and a Cleveland squad looking to take a leap after surprising the league last season.

Eric Nehm: For this story, Jared, we can just go back and forth on the Bucks and Celtics. They were expected to be the two main contenders in the East, so let’s just talk about their playoff history, what’s changed since these two teams met last season and … wait, what is Kelsey doing here?

Kelsey Russo: SURPRISE! The Cavs are one of the top five teams in the East!

The trade for Donovan Mitchell in early September launched the Cavs into the conversation. But where they would fit into that conversation was still in question heading into the season. Mitchell raised the Cavs’ ceiling, but to where exactly?

Through the first 13 games, we’ve seen precisely why Cleveland made a move to land Mitchell. He has seamlessly fit into this group from the beginning of training camp with a willingness to do what is necessary for the team. The Cavs started 8-1 with an eight-game winning streak after dropping the season opener and losing Darius Garland to an eye injury. Mitchell held down the point during that stretch as a facilitator, creator and scorer. He has led them through multiple overtime wins and is averaging 31.6 points per game through 11 played games.

But the Cavs have lost their last four games, enduring some tough late losses to the Clippers, Kings and Warriors, as well as a loss to the Timberwolves (without Mitchell and Jarrett Allen) after returning from their West Coast road trip Sunday night. It’s part of the process of the early stages of the season, but they need to find a way to break out of this losing stretch and close in late-game situations.

Jared Weiss: Honestly, I’m more surprised that the Celtics are the ones in this group. This team has been able to make crises vanish quickly in 2022. Joe Mazzulla’s sudden interim tenure is going well, they are compensating for Robert Williams’ late preseason surgery and the vibes are immaculate. As good as they’ve been — they do have the best record in the league, after all — Williams’ absence has been huge.

We’ll get into that later, but it’s been a pleasant surprise to see how the Celtics are managing to squeak out wins when they’re shooting poorly. Their comeback win Monday against the Thunder was the epitome of their identity this season. The defense was lousy for three quarters, then they brought in Payton Pritchard and he partnered with Derrick White to full-court press the Thunder into 12 turnovers in 12 minutes.

Josh Giddey was dominating in the first half, but they completely took him out of his game in the second half. I caught up with him after the game, and he just talked about how the Celtics have championship habits. It sounds funny hearing that since they entered the calendar year meandering at .500. But they had a pedigree of deep playoff runs a few years back, and that all finally manifested into a complete team in the spring. They could have fallen apart through the Ime Udoka situation, but a lot of players are taking another step forward in their development this season, and they’re showing they can win in so many different ways right now.

There’s just this looming fear that no matter how good they are, the Bucks at full strength are unstoppable.

Eric Nehm: While there is still that hope among many Bucks fans, it’s getting more difficult to imagine because the roster has suffered so many injuries. On Tuesday, it took me three tweets to give a full update on the Bucks’ injury list with eight different players facing some questions about their health.

Giannis Antetokounmpo has missed three of the Bucks’ last four games after playing in the first nine games of the season. Jrue Holiday has missed the team’s last three games. Khris Middleton has still not played this season as he recovers from an offseason surgery to his left wrist. Pat Connaughton injured his right calf during the preseason and has yet to see the floor. This Bucks team has been nowhere close to healthy and still rattled off a 10-3 start to the season. While they have played a weak schedule, the results are tough to deny, especially with a depleted roster.

More than anything though, the thing that stands out most about the Bucks thus far is a surprise.

After years of allowing opponents to fire away from the 3-point line while denying shots at the rim, Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer has decided to take those looks away. And to this point, they haven’t given up that many more shots at the rim. Teams have taken 30.6 percent of their shots at the rim against the Bucks this season, the fifth-lowest percentage league-wide, and 32.1 percent of their shots from 3, the NBA’s third-lowest percentage. Forcing teams into tougher shots has helped the Bucks get back to being the league’s best defense.

Russo: For both the Celtics and the Bucks, how sustainable is their start? Or what needs to change? I think it’s an interesting element because the Celtics are coming off an NBA Finals appearance last season. The Bucks have both the recent playoff and championship experience and are continuously at the top of the East and, as you mentioned, Eric, they are dealing with several injuries.

For the Cavs, I think one of the main components is going to be if they can stay healthy. They have the bigs to anchor their defense and potentially have a top defense in the league while also having multiple offensive threats on the floor. But they need all those guys healthy and available. They have decent depth in the rotation with players whom they can plug into certain roles, but the scoring punch and defensive presence from their starters are crucial.

Last season, the Cavs built their identity on their defense, and that carried over into this season. But they have struggled recently on that front, like when they gave up 127 points to Minnesota and 129 points to Sacramento.

They have the fourth-best defensive rating in the league at 107.3 and an offensive rating at 115.5, which is third in the league. The Cavs also have the best net rating in the league at 6.7. While that top net rating may not be sustainable, holding onto a top defensive rating is paramount.

Weiss: The obvious red flag for Boston is the defense, which is ranked 20th in the league and has a slightly different scheme this season. Last season, they switched more than any other team one through five, so primarily switching only one through four this season as the base scheme has raised eyebrows. The main impression I’m getting is that they are running more drop coverage because of their center personnel without Robert Williams and to help the newer guys in the rotation learn all of the weakside help that comes along with drop coverage.

I think it also keeps some of the guys such as Sam Hauser and Malcolm Brogdon from having to guard a center, as they aren’t as well-equipped as the guys who made up the core rotation of the Celtics defense last season. White is probably the smallest guard in their top rotation, but he at least is great at defending bigs because he has such amazing hands and technique without fouling.

The thing to look out for is whether they can continue to win without running the defense that made them so good, and will that change when Williams is back? It’s not like dropping on pick-and-rolls is completely foreign to them; they did it a lot last season, just more aggressively so that they could contain the dribble and the roll with Williams lurking on the baseline. Right now, they’re in a deeper drop, and they’re making themselves vulnerable both to pull-up shooting and deep dribble penetration because their point-of-attack defense has been lackluster so far. It’s hard to imagine them winning 60 games if their defense plays at this level all season, but we know they’re capable of more.

If they’re playing with a record-setting offense the entire season, it won’t matter. They are squeaking wins, even on bad shooting nights because their offensive principles are so good. If either Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown gets hurt, that’s when their defense is going to need to take a big step forward.

Nehm: As long as Antetokounmpo and Brook Lopez are on the floor, the Bucks defense being among the league’s best feels sustainable. Lopez missed 69 games last season and, for some reason, it seems as though everyone forgot he made second-team NBA All-Defense in 2020 and made a massive impact during the team’s 2021 postseason run to a championship. There were questions about how he might bounce back from back surgery, but he looks like his all-defensive self again this season.

On the offensive end, the Bucks should get much better as they get healthy. Middleton has scored an efficient 20 points per game since Budenholzer has arrived in Milwaukee and added over five assists per game the last two seasons. Also, Middleton is the Bucks’ primary pick-and-roll partner for Antetokounmpo. Connaughton also has been one of their best 3-point shooters in the last two seasons.

The Bucks have been a top-five offensive unit since Budenholzer got to Milwaukee in 2018, so that should be the expectation once they get healthy again. Top-five units on both sides of the ball should keep the Bucks at the top of the East.

Weiss: The irony of this Celtics team is that they’ve gone from being a defensive juggernaut to an offensive machine. The defense has been below average, but it currently holds the highest offensive rating in NBA history at 119.7, per Cleaning the Glass. If you filter for the outlier 2020-21 season that made up the top seven coming into the season, this season’s Cavs are next up at 116.7. That’s a sizeable gap, and now that we’re 14 games into the season, we’re approaching legitimate sample-size territory. Let’s see where they are by the end of the month, but Tatum’s and Marcus Smart’s playmaking this season, along with Brown’s scoring in the paint, makes their hot start seem sustainable when Williams eventually returns.

What bodes well for Boston‘s offense is that Brogdon is scoring well, but he still has a lot of work to do to figure out his passing outlets when he drives the paint. He is still able to be an effective playmaker because he is such a savvy veteran. He can make two-man actions work and, if the defense isn’t that good, he can drive and kick at will. But good defenses can close those gaps and force him to be a scorer. He does that well enough that it isn’t an issue, but there is still a much higher ceiling on his impact with this team.

Brogdon has been playing like a good bench piece so far, but we’ve seen him be a fridge All-Star in the past. Brogdon, at his fullest potential, is going to look like a bona fide NBA Sixth Man of the Year front-runner, tearing teams apart when they have to give attention to Tatum and Brown, especially when he gets a lob threat like Williams out there.

Russo: Through this early portion of the season, what is either an area or a specific player you are keeping a close eye on?

For Cleveland, it’s Evan Mobley’s offensive involvement. It’s too early to say there is cause for concern because Mobley missed almost all but the final game of the preseason with an ankle injury, so the first few games of the regular season served as his preseason. The Cavs also have dealt with several injuries early, so there’s been some movement in lineups and rotations. They also have multiple offensive threats with Mitchell, Darius Garland and Caris LeVert all out on the floor in that starting unit, as well as Allen in the paint.

But Mobley has been relatively quiet on the offensive end. He scored 26 points in the Cavs’ loss to the Clippers last week and has had two other 20-point games through 13 games. But there hasn’t been an explosive game for Mobley just yet. Some of the games in which he has scored in double figures have been overshadowed by teammates’ performances.

One of the areas of growth in Mobley’s game is in his 3-point shooting. After beginning to implement it during his rookie season, it was a focus this past offseason. However, through his first 13 games, Mobley has 11 3-point attempts and has made just two.

The Cavs know Mobley’s importance to their future success. Coach J.B. Bickerstaff said they have to work to put Mobley in situations where he has the advantage. They also want to put the ball in his hands more and give Mobley opportunities to play. He can find ways to create shots. He’s been attack-minded on the offensive end, and the Cavs have to find the best way to diversify his offensive opportunities and utilize that mentality.

Nehm: With the Bucks deciding to change their defensive scheme and strategy this season, my eyes briefly shifted to their defense and whether they would be able to take away the 3-point line. It seemed like they might end up allowing too many quality looks at the rim to take away the 3-point line, but that hasn’t been the case. They’ve been able to take away both and force teams into midrange jumpers.

With the defense performing well thus far, my eyes have moved back to the offensive end. The defense got a lot of attention in the aftermath of their second-round loss to the Celtics last season, but their offense underperformed far more. This was not the first time the Bucks’ offense has come up short in the postseason, and it is typically the half-court offense that struggles.

It is not fair to judge the offense quite yet with so many of their best offensive players missing time, but the Bucks have posted the league’s 23rd-best offensive rating. Their 3-point shooters have struggled, and things don’t look much easier in the half court. The offense getting back on track and then figuring out some new tricks for the postseason will be the biggest storyline for the rest of the season in Milwaukee.

Nehm: Let’s end this thing with a fun game. In less than 100 words, tell me how the team you cover can be the No. 1 seed in the East at the end of the season.

Russo: HOT TAKES, HERE WE COME.

The Cavs will be the No. 1 seed in the East IF they hold the top defense in the league and a top-three offense. Cleveland has proven the importance of its defense both last season and this season. It’s the Cavs’ identity. The Junkyard Dog Chain — given to a player who demonstrated the toughness and grit they look for — is a symbol of this group. They have to play to the standard that Bickerstaff demands each night. If they can shut down opposing offenses and use that momentum to turn into offense — with Mitchell and Garland leading the charge — they could claim the top seed.

Weiss: If the defense comes around while Williams gets healthy by the All-Star break, this team is probably the front-runner for the top seed just based on how well Tatum is playing. Even if some of their shooting isn’t going to last, Tatum has taken another step forward as a game manager, and Brown has become deadly finishing with his left hand. It’s to the point that there isn’t anything teams can do to keep Brown from scoring once he’s able to break through that first line of the defense. Tatum and Brown look like they’re both superstars right now, and the Celtics have good depth. They’re running off transition so frequently that they’re racking up easy baskets. The offense has all of the characteristics of a 60-win team, and we know what their defense can do at its best. Cleveland and Milwaukee are comparable in their talent, so this is legitimately close. But I do think Boston is the favorite for the No. 1 seed as things stand.

Nehm: The Bucks will be the No. 1 seed in the East IF they manage to finish the season with a top-five offense. I think their defense will be their strength because that is what Budenholzer demands on a nightly basis. If they figure out their offense, whether the solutions come through just having a healthier roster or figuring out new ways to attack teams, they can take control of the top spot in the East.

(Top photo of Jaylen Brown and Jarrett Allen: David Butler II / USA Today)