We’re into the thick of it during the Conference Finals, and as both series are underway between the final four teams left out of the 16 that entered the field, there are some clear-cut favorites as both series unfold.

The Los Angeles Clippers and Phoenix Suns have played two games, but it seems that the series is halfway over. Team leader Chris Paul has yet to play in this series due to him being held out for COVID-19 health and safety protocols after he contracted COVID-19 after being vaccinated, but the Suns have won two games against the Clippers. So while the Clips stay behind the 8-ball with their injury woes – Kawhi Leonard will continue to be out with a sprained knee – Chris Paul and the Suns could not be healthier, and Paul himself – a former Clipper that’ll look to exact revenge on the franchise that traded him away in 2017 -with these Suns, they look to escape the Staples Center with a win and advance to the NBA Finals with only two wins left needed.

And on the Eastern side, the Hawks and Bucks played their first game of the Eastern Conference Finals on Wednesday night, and to the shock of just about everyone, Trae Young’s Atlanta Hawks upset the Milwaukee Bucks as Young proceeded to put on a breakout performance of 49 points, 11 assists and 7 rebounds against arguably the best team left in the playoffs. It’s only been one game, and a sample size isn’t too quantifiable as well as justifiable this early in a series where adjustments will be made frequently.

We’ll get to analyzing the two teams who have the distinct advantage in their respective series in this week’s Power Rankings.

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1. No. 2 Phoenix Suns

(51-21, Won 4-2 vs. No. 7 Los Angeles Lakers in First Round, Won 4-0 vs. No. 3 Denver Nuggets in WCSF, Up 2-0 vs. No. 4 Los Angeles Clippers in WCF, Last Week’s Ranking: 1)

Up a full two games over the No.4 seeded Clippers in their first Western Conference Finals appearance in a decade, the Phoenix Suns are rolling. Devin Booker is blossoming into the next great superstar in the NBA, and even more importantly, DeAndre Ayton has shown he cannot be contained or neutralized by the Clippers frontcourt – indicative of his shocking game-winning throwdown off a lob.

Clippers big man Ivica Zubac has an even plus/minus of zero, which isn’t good or bad but largely contributed to Ayton’s presence on the offensive glass and in transition, in which the Clippers have shown they lack the strength and athleticism to match and better the effort he’s put in (22.0 points, 11.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 2 games in the Western Conference Finals) during Phoenix’s holding serve at home in this series.

And not to say that it’s been two lucky outings in which everything fell into place for the Suns; this young and growing team has held the third-highest home win total all season, so them winning two straight against an undermanned Clippers team wasn’t exactly expected but certainly eye-opening.

Now, Chris Paul will return to his team to potentially go up three games to none for the first game of this series inside the Staples Center since he finished up his quarantine period, and also keep in mind: the Suns owned the best road record of any team in the NBA this season.

With how highly Devin Booker’s been achieving in these playoffs, it’s remissable to skip over how quintessential Cameron Payne has been all postseason but none more than in this series with Chris Paul quarantining at home. Payne has shown a fearlessness unabated by the magnamity of the moment, stepping up in big ways by averaging 20 points, 9 assists and 2 rebounds in the first 2 games in the 2021 Western Conference Finals. Whether he’s dipping his head and going at the rim, taking his man off the dribble to score in the 8-foot range with a mid-range pullup/floater/scoop layup, he’s shown that the adversity of the backup-turned-starter’s role is practically non-existent.

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2. No. 5 Atlanta Hawks

(41-31, Won 4-1 vs. No. 4 New York Knicks in First Round, Won 4-3 vs. No. 1 Philadelphia 76ers in ECSF, Up 1-0 in ECF vs. No. 3 Milwaukee Bucks, Last Week’s Ranking: N/A) 

This year’s playoffs have adopted a theme of the youthful uprising, and Trae Young is on the forefront of the reverberation of the memo.

In his first-ever Conference Finals appearance, the 22-year-old 6-foot-1 Point Guard indomitably snatched a win from the unrelenting hands of the Milwaukee Bucks, defensively stout and all, on Wednesday night with a performance for the ages – 48 points, 11 rebounds and 7 assists against the third-best defense in these playoffs, becoming the first scorer to put 40 on two-way star Jrue Holiday’s head all postseason.

Even more noteworthy: Trae put up those numbers in an efficient manner off of 17-for-34 shooting through four quarters. Young had 32 through three when matched up onto Holiday, who would’ve had a better shot rolling a perfect strike with his feet than stay in front of Trae for the 29 minutes and five seconds he guarded him for during Game 1.

Head Coach Nate McMillan saw an opportunity to target Bucks big man Brook Lopez when he was in drop coverage, and proceeded to work the in-between game, utilizing the floater with ease and when switched onto an additional lengthy body in Mike Budenholzer’s defensive schemes to stop the Pick and Roll, it took Trae little effort to get by whoever was in front of him, while he casually dished some lobs and pocket passes to both Clint Capela and second-highest scorer John Collins, who floated around Young all night.

Young finished Game 1 as a net-positive +10 due to his aggressiveness in both halves and especially in the fourth quarter, where the Oklahoma standout scored his remaining 16 points by knocking down some simple runners and getting to the line, where he shot over 83 percent in 12 attempts at the stripe. His feel for the game was accentuated when the drop coverage went away, and Young looked to be in more of a facilitating role to take pressure off of himself.

What Mike Budenholzer will do to diminish Young’s imprint on Game 2 is yet to be seen, but as great as Atlanta’s offense was last night, they showed very little tenacity to neutralize Giannis Antetokounmpo from imposing his will inside the paint. It’s going to be a series of adjustments from two coaches who are set to have a masterclass of a series, and Game 2 will give us more of a broadened perspective on who really has the edge in a competitive series like this one.

Source: pngkey.com

With the first round of the playoffs in the books and the second round officially commencing a few nights ago, the powers that be in both the Eastern and Western conferences are both maintaining their pedigree as top seeds and not quite living up to expectations from the jump. For the Eastern Conference Semifinals, we’ve gotten a glimpse of who are the serious competitors in the two series of Brooklyn-Milwaukee and Philadelphia-Atlanta, and while one series ramps up in suspense as it was knotted last night, the other seems to be nearing its unexpected and shocking end already.

The Philadelphia 76ers handled business in a tightly-contested battle that was ultimately resolved by superstar big man Joel Embiid and bench scorer Shake Milton, who dropped 13 points in the fourth quarter and helped the Sixers storm ahead of the offensively-stacked Hawks and tie the series at one apiece. But for Milwaukee, skill deficiencies are only being accentuated as reigning MVP and Defensive Player of the Year Giannis Antetokounmpo struggles to find his footing against the most dangerous duo for the Brooklyn Nets that features Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, who have stampeded all over the Bucks for a commanding 2-0 series lead while James Harden continues to miss time due to a reaggravation of his right hamstring injury that kept him out for a large quarter of the season.

As for the rest? We will get to that in this week’s Power Rankings. And keep in mind: With every round, we showcase the winners and better teams in each series, so like how there were eight winners in the two weeks of the first round, there will be four teams that make the cut by being the more dominant side or having a rousing series lead.

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1. No. 2 Brooklyn Nets (48-24, Won 4-1 vs. No. 7 Boston Celtics in First Round, 2-0 vs. No. 3 Milwaukee Bucks in ECSF, Last Week’s Ranking: 2)

Two games into their series against the Milwaukee Bucks, and it’s rather more believable than not for onlookers to want to fast forward to the Nets advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals. Milwaukee looks to be playing the role of the diminutive bug hitting the windshield that is the Nets’ multifaceted offensive attack, as both Kevin Durant (30.5 points per game off 57/46/90 shooting splits through two games vs. MIL) and Kyrie Irving (23.5 points off 47/38 shooting splits without a single free throw attempted through two games) aren’t making things easy for the Bucks to get at least a win in this series.

With James Harden re-aggravating a right hamstring injury that forced him to sit out for 21 games this season, they’ve shown that they aren’t missing his presence at all in this matchup. Whether it be hedging Antetokounmpo off the catch to stop him from getting downhill or setting up the wall when he’s the PnR ball-handler, they’ve not only severely neutralized his capabilities by slowing him down, but more so have sapped his confidence as a scorer in the halfcourt. And around him, the rest of the Bucks cannot follow suit, losing both games as a team by an average of 23.5 points.

Khris Middleton’s struggles to get going as the primary halfcourt creator aside, the duo of Kevin Durant and the energetic Blake Griffin have made easy work of the two-time and reigning MVP and DPOY Antetokounmpo on both ends of the court. And Irving has been just as efficient at attacking and taking out Jrue Holiday whenever the two opponents take the court.

The series that prognosticators fathomed to be a barnburner that would go the distance is beginning to look like a steamrolling, but the Bucks head back home and haven’t lost inside the Fiserv Forum all postseason, so it’ll be interesting to see how/if they storm out of the gates and set the tone in front of their home fans.

Because their season could be as good as over tomorrow night if they don’t.

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2. No. 2 Phoenix Suns (51-21, Won 4-2 vs. No. 7 Los Angeles Lakers in First Round, 1-0 vs. No. 3 Denver Nuggets in WCSF, Last Week’s Ranking: 5)

Well, they did it. They knocked off the seventh-seeded defending champion Los Angeles Lakers in six games to the surprise of almost everyone and kept up the momentum by dominating the Denver Nuggets in Game one of the Western Conference Semi-Finals by a score of 122-105. And while we’re getting to witness Devin Booker take yet another step towards superstardom, it was all on Chris Paul’s accord to take the Suns home and take over in the fourth quarter, scoring or assisting on 20 of the team’s 34 points to finish off the game.

Monday night’s rousing win over third-seeded Denver added yet another page to the lengthy legacy book for Paul, as Game One’s win was the ninth time that the unanimously-dubbed “Point Gawd” racked up at least 20 points, 10 assists, and one or fewer turnovers, passing his friend LeBron James for the most in the league with that line. And also, he became the oldest player in league postseason history to compile 20 points, 10 assists, and 5 rebounds at age 36.

It’s not honest to say that Paul is simply turning back the clock by controlling the pace and tempo of the floor in such a cerebral manner; it’s rather commonplace to see him doing it, considering that it’s been the tale of his entire career to be the NBA’s trusted and premier Quarterback for the guys on the floor with him.

And for Denver, that’s obviously not a good thing. While league MVP Nikola Jokic was, and will still be, the best player on the floor, they will have their work cut out for them in trying to manufacture additional offense if Jokic is the only one able to generate a consistent rhythm when the guards on the floor cannot do much to impact the game. Phoenix was also extremely balanced on the floor from their backcourt and frontcourt producing equally, as four of their starters scored 20+ points, so it’s up to Denver to match that with either Michael Porter Jr. or Monte Morris stepping up as artillery.

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3. No. 1 Philadelphia 76ers (49-23, Won 4-1 vs. No. 8 Washington Wizards in First Round, 1-1 vs. No. 5 Atlanta Hawks in ECSF, Last Week’s Ranking: 1)

While it felt like their game one loss to Atlanta was more of a statement win and the official arrival of Trae Young as a superstar, it was merely anything but, considering the Hawks’ 24-point lead created in the second half was decimated as the Hawks only won by four points. Philly’s combo of Danny Green and Seth Curry had their worst shooting performances of the playoffs, Joel Embiid still dropped 30 but on a partially torn Meniscus, and Ben Simmons was as ineffective as he could possibly be on both ends by shrinking the floor and getting into early foul trouble.

And in Game 4, all of Philly’s game one positives were multiplied one game later as they were the ones to get off to a fiery start in the first quarter while keeping Trae Young shooting under 25 percent from deep for a full 48 minutes. Joel Embiid ended up putting on a regulatory masterclass of an offensive performance while Clint Capela couldn’t do a thing against him, and Shake Milton, well, shook back with a career-best postseason performance of a late third-quarter nod from Coach Doc Rivers and finished game 2 with 14 points on 5-of-8 shooting and 90 percent shooting from downtown.

While the Hawks did the work to diminish a double-digit lead to a four-point deficit, Shake Milton and Embiid went on a tear along with Tobias Harris and Seth Curry both combining for 43 points as the Sixers prevented themselves from falling into a 2-0 hole. This series will go to Atlanta for what could be a decisive game 3, and as the Hawks announced Wednesday afternoon that star defender and 2-way threat DeAndre Hunter will miss the rest of the season with a torn meniscus, the difficulty in picking up a timely home win just increased.

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4. No. 1 Utah Jazz (52-20, Won 4-1 vs. No. 8 Memphis Grizzlies in First Round, 1-0 vs. No. 4 Los Angeles Clippers in WCSF, Last Week’s Ranking: 4)

Though they earned a slim game one victory over the Los Angeles Clippers, who were fresh off of a season-saving Game 7 victory over the Dallas Mavericks this past Sunday, these Utah Jazz present a different challenge to the Clippers, even if they held the lead in the season series 2-1. Mike Conley Jr. was out in Game one of the series Tuesday night but that didn’t hinder Donovan Mitchell, who also is growing into the shoes of a superstar rapidly in his fourth-ever postseason appearance.

Mitchell finished Game one with 45 points, matching his number of course, and as a team, Utah found a way to play team defense to severely limit Paul George and Kawhi Leonard through all four quarters. Of the duo, Leonard led in scoring, but the significant key of remembrance would be to recognize the defensive efforts of Royce O’Neale, who guarded Kawhi for a majority of his minutes and found a way to keep him from shooting over 30 percent the entire night.

And more importantly, the team defense the Jazz played in game one against the Clippers resulted in a variety of transition threes in the second half after what was an abysmal first half of shooting. The Jazz have to take their game one win with a grain of salt, for they opened the second round contest missing 20 straight shots but ended up shooting 40 percent as a team and a little under 35 percent from deep. With home-court advantage on their side for game two and a defensive gameplan they can feel comfortable running against the struggling duo of Leonard and George, Utah has to start feeling good about where they are at in this series so far.