The Celtics' season started on October 20, and the standings count from that night. Boston lost 113-121 at Detroit. Paul George scored 38 and Payton Pritchard added 17, but the Pistons won by eight. After one game Boston sat 2nd in the East. By the next day it was 14th, and on October 22 it was 10th.
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The power rankings fell much faster. On October 22 they had Boston dropping from 4th to 21st in a week. A day later the drop was from 4th to 20th.
Boston answered on October 23 with a 107-103 win over the Knicks. Jayson Tatum scored 36 and George had 15. The margin was four points, and the standings moved with it. Boston went to 1-1 and 6th in the East on October 24, and the rankings had it at 13th. On October 25 the record was still 1-1, but Boston was 8th in the East. That is a shift in tiebreakers, not a result, because there was no game between those two dates.
The week before the opener was mostly roster business. Tucker DeVries, Gabe McGlothan, Milos Uzan and Hayden Gray left the team on October 18, one day after a report that Boston had waived four camp invitees. That leaves 17 names on the roster. Devin Carter had been listed day-to-day for illness on October 17 and was moved to out for illness on October 18. Nothing since then has said whether he has returned. Boston is also converting him to a two-way contract, and the report gave no date.
Pritchard's two-year extension, agreed October 13, still has no reported terms. Baylor Scheierman was re-listed day-to-day for rest on October 16 and has not appeared in any update since.
The October 8 to October 16 stretch is now background. Boston won four games in that run: at Cleveland, against Philadelphia, against Charlotte, and at Philadelphia. The standings do not carry them. Most of the team was listed day-to-day for rest on October 16 and cleared the next day. No injury changes have been logged for the opener or the Knicks game.
The notes columns kept the same names in circulation. The Celtics notes on October 20 and October 23 listed George, Tatum and Pritchard, with Robinson and Walsh also named in them. The October 25 Sixers notes put Brown and Tatum in the same line. None of those items added specifics.
Open storylines
as of Sun, Oct 25Pritchard and Boston agreed to a two-year extension October 13, and no dollar figures or option details have been reported.
Carter went from day-to-day to out for illness October 18, and his two-way conversion has no reported date.
DeVries, McGlothan, Uzan and Gray left October 18, a day after the report of four waived invitees, and the report never named them.
Scheierman was re-listed day-to-day for rest October 16 and has not appeared in any update since.
Boston is 1-1 and 8th in the East, after sliding in the power rankings from 4th to 20th and recovering to 13th.
The projection
all 30 teams →The season depends most on Derrick White (15.2 wins without him), Neemias Queta (10.7 wins without him), Paul George (3.5 wins without him), Sam Hauser (2.4 wins without him) and Mitchell Robinson (1.3 wins without him): on/off from 2026-27, details under Injuries. Computed Sun, Oct 25; the method is on the methods page.
The race
Eastern Conference · 80 games leftNext 5: vs Bulls33%vs Nets0%vs Bulls33%at Magic0%at Rockets100%opponents win 33% of their games on average
Standings and games back are from the official table; the pace is the current record carried over 82 games, nothing more.
Day by day
30 days on the recordEarlier on the record26 more days · back to Fri, Sep 11
The franchise
Every season since the start →Public record →Nowupdated 2026-10-19
Joe Mazzulla enters his fourth full season as head coach of a team rebuilt around Jayson Tatum, the 2017 draft pick who anchors the roster alongside Derrick White, Payton Pritchard, Neemias Queta, Sam Hauser, Mitchell Robinson and Baylor Scheierman. Last season Boston went 56-26, with the league's second-ranked offense and fourth-ranked defense, good for the NBA's fourth-best net rating at 8.3. That run ended in the 2026 playoffs when the Celtics blew a 3-1 series lead and lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in the first round. That exit led to the summer's defining move: Boston traded Jaylen Brown to the 76ers for Paul George and two first-round and two second-round picks, closing the "Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum" era that had defined the franchise since 2016. The Celtics also signed Payton Pritchard to a two-year extension on October 13. The payroll sits at $203.9 million across 17 contracts, above the $200.4 million luxury tax line and approaching the $209.0 million first apron, with Tatum ($58.5M), George ($54.1M), White ($30.3M) and Robinson ($15.0M) the biggest deals. Boston holds its own 2027 and 2030 first-round picks, a protected 2028 first, and swap rights in 2027 and 2029, while owing second-round picks to San Antonio, Oklahoma City and Brooklyn.
Identity and rivalries111 words
This is the franchise with an NBA-record 18 championships, built across generations by Red Auerbach, Bob Cousy, Bill Russell and Tom Heinsohn before Tatum's group added the 18th banner in 2024. Boston's identity has long been offense-first efficiency paired with physical, top-five defense, a formula last season's rankings bore out again. The 76ers are now the rivalry with the most at stake: Philadelphia ended Boston's 2026 season after the blown 3-1 lead, then took Brown off their hands in the trade that remade this roster. The Lakers rivalry carries the sport's longest-running stakes, the two franchises long tied at 17 championships apiece until Boston's 2024 title pulled it ahead to 18.
Home, owners and numbers93 words
The Celtics are based in Boston, owned by Boston Basketball Partners L.L.C., the group led by H. Irving Grousbeck, Wycliffe Grousbeck and Steve Pagliuca that bought the team from Paul Gaston in 2003. The franchise has retired 23 jersey numbers, more than any team in American pro sports, and 49 people connected to the Celtics are enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, among them Cousy, Russell, Heinsohn and the figures celebrated on the championship banners that fill the arena, including the 2008 title referenced on the team's old City uniforms.
What they are chasing105 words
Boston is chasing a 19th championship after the 76ers ended last season's bid in the first round. With Brown gone and Paul George, 36, now paired with Tatum, the open question fans argue is whether George can replicate what Brown gave this roster at age 36 with 16 years in the league behind him. The other is financial: at $203.9 million, the Celtics are already above the luxury tax and just under the $209.0 million first apron, with the $221.7 million second apron also out there, so how long ownership keeps paying into the tax while retooling around Tatum and George is an open question.
The long view476 words
The Boston Celtics were formed on June 6, 1946, by Walter A. Brown as one of the original eight teams in the Basketball Association of America, joining the NBA on August 3, 1949 after the BAA-NBL merger. They play at TD Garden, shared with the Bruins, and hold NBA records for most championships, with 18, and most wins of any franchise. In 1950 they signed Chuck Cooper, becoming the first NBA franchise to draft a black player.
The dynasty began when coach Red Auerbach acquired Bill Russell in 1956. With Russell, Bob Cousy, and Tom Heinsohn, the Celtics won their first title in 1957, then eight straight championships from 1959 to 1966, the longest title streak in U.S. professional sports. That era's supporting cast included Don Nelson, K. C. Jones, John Havlicek, Sam Jones, Satch Sanders, and Bill Sharman. In 1966 Russell became player-coach, the first African American head coach in U.S. pro sports, and led back-to-back titles in 1968 and 1969 before retiring, having won 11 championships in 13 seasons, the most by any NBA player.
After a rebuild, Dave Cowens, Havlicek, and Jo Jo White won championships in 1974 and 1976 under coach Tom Heinsohn. The 1980s brought the "Big Three" of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish, revived the rivalry with the "Showtime" Lakers, and produced titles in 1981, 1984, and 1986, the latter two under coach K. C. Jones. Maxwell was Finals MVP in 1981. The team then struggled through the deaths of 1986 draft pick Len Bias and star Reggie Lewis, and through much of the 1990s and early 2000s.
A new "Big Three" formed in 2007 around captain Paul Pierce with the additions of Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett; under coach Doc Rivers they beat the Lakers for the 17th championship in 2008 and lost to the Lakers in the 2010 Finals. After Garnett and Pierce were traded to the Brooklyn Nets for four first-round picks, the Celtics drafted Jaylen Brown (2016) and Jayson Tatum (2017). "The Jays" reached the 2022 Finals, losing to the Golden State Warriors, then beat the Dallas Mavericks in 2024 for the 18th championship.
The Celtics' name and mascot, Lucky the Leprechaun, nod to Boston's Irish population and the barnstorming Original Celtics. Their rivalry with the Lakers, second in titles with 17, peaked in the 1960s and 1980s; the two franchises have met a record 12 times in the Finals, with Boston winning nine. Forty-one Basketball Hall of Famers have played for the Celtics, and four Celtics — Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, Dave Cowens, and Larry Bird — have won NBA MVP, part of an NBA-record 10 MVP awards by Celtics players. In May 2025, the franchise sold to William Chisholm for $6.1 billion, a deal later passed as the second-highest-valued sports franchise transaction in U.S. history after the Lakers' roughly $10 billion sale.