This is a new weekly series where I will be talking about the Celtics and some stuff I’ve seen, it will be somewhere between 5-10 things a week

1.Jaylen Brown’s MVP case

No one came into the year expecting the Celtics to be good but they actually were, and the main reason is Jaylen Brown, he has stepped up, averaging around 28-7-5 and leading the Celtics without Tatum. Without a guy like him they would be down in the dumps and not contending, Pritchard and White helped but they weren’t enough to lead without Brown. Jaylen Brown is a top 3 MVP candidate because he empowered a weak Celtics team to be a title contender and the best team in the east

2.Tatum’s new spot

Tatum came back and isn’t the first option and he’s been great behind Brown, sometimes even being the 3rd or 4th option and it’s perfect for the Celtics. They needed a guy who could score and get buckets while not being the main man and Tatum stepped up and has done that ever since he came back. Tatum is also grabbing around 10 rebounds a night which has helped a ton since one of the biggest issues was centers and Vucevic has been injured for about a month. He’s also taken the load off of Sam Hauser which has helped Hauser become the accurate sharpshooter he was and also given the Celtics offense a nice spark like they needed

3.Queta’s big steps

Last year Queta was the 4th center on the depth chart, only playing in garbage time, he was behind Porzingis, Horford, Kornet, and sometimes Xavier Tillman too. This year he has stepped up and been averaging 10 and 8 with 1.5 blocks and helped the Celtics defense and post game a ton. He’s been a great piece for a contending team and has been the quietest reason for our success and arguably the biggest. Without Queta the Celtics would be in a very different spot right now, probably nowhere close to a top seed and a title contending team

4.The NBA draft

The Celtics are in a weird spot this year because they are picking later in the first round and this year’s draft class is stacked. It seems like someone like Morez Johnson or Christian Anderson will fall to us and be a good option for us to draft. In my opinion Anderson is the guy we need, a backup point guard who can get assists, the Celtics usually don’t have a 7+ assist per game player but adding someone like Anderson could easily give us a spark and help us contend. And with our second pick which is around 40 I think we should just grab the best available which I hope is Dash Daniels, another guard who can get us steals and fits our scheme pretty good

5.The playoffs

With the playoffs looming and everyone coming back the Celtics are poised for a nice run at the title and in a weak east it seems even more likely to happen. Tatum came back, Vucevic will be back soon too, and they don’t have any other injuries that could impact them for the playoffs. They should be able to win in the first round and if they get the Knicks or Cavs they should be able to win, then they have the Pistons with Cade still getting over his lung issue, they should get another win if he’s not fully healthy, then they are on to the finals where I think they will play the Thunder or Spurs, they could win, they did beat the Thunder recently, so it’s looking good in Boston right now