Eddie House says Celtics shouldn’t overlook Nets as potential first-round opponent

Eddie House warns against C’s overlooking potential first-round opponent originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

With less than a week to go in the regular season, there remains a surprising lack of clarity about who the Boston Celtics could face in the first round of the playoffs.

In a downright chaotic race to the finish, scenarios exist in which the Celtics face any number of opponents while finishing anywhere from first through fifth in the Eastern Conference.

Among all of those possibilities, Eddie House seems most wary of one opponent in particular.

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Appearing on Pregame Live Wednesday, the 2008 NBA champion with the Celtics said that Boston shouldn’t overlook the Brooklyn Nets, who despite a middling 41-38 record with three games to go, still boast Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.

“You should respect the fact that they do have two guys on their team that are closers and are extremely good finishers at the rim,” House said.

With Robert Williams III likely out for any potential first round matchup, the Celtics will be lacking their full rim protection capabilities.

“A team that has two guys that love to put pressure on the rim and put pressure on the paint, when you are lacking paint presence, to me, I don’t want to see them in the first round,” House said.

House added that the Celtics don’t want to limp into the playoffs and should continue to do whatever they can to win, but that if they were to see the Nets at all, the later in the postseason, the better.

“You don’t want to get into a Game 7 with one of the best players in the world on the other side,” House said.

Boston is 3-1 against Brooklyn in 2021-22, though it’s faced a lineup featuring both Durant and Irving only once — a 126-120 Celtics win at TD Garden on March 6, when Jayson Tatum dropped 54 points.

Through Wednesday afternoon, Basketball Reference gave the Celtics a 43.8 percent chance of finishing second in the East — their most…