The battle for the top seed in the East is heating up after Easter Sunday, as the Brooklyn Nets, Philadelphia 76ers, and Milwaukee Bucks are all separated by just 1.5 games. The same cannot be said for the rest of the East. From seeds 4 to 11, each team is separated by a total of 6.5 games, and are all treading lightly and have a litany of tough games down the stretch of the last seven weeks of the year. All teams in that position are all fighting to stay out of the play-in round as it stands.

And as it goes for a team like the Lakers, who aren’t playing up to their potential because of their injury difficulties, don’t have much of a margin for error in the final seven weeks of the year. LeBron James isn’t expected back for another three weeks, and Anthony Davis’ Achilles troubles are, concerning, to put it lightly. But as conference battles continue to take shape, we’re getting a picture of who can hang in the playoff picture, and who should hold off on their playoff hopes for another year.

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1. Utah Jazz (38-12, Last Week’s Ranking: 1)

The Jazz have won nine games in a row and are resembling the team that struck the league by storm at the season’s beginning. As the surprise team of the year, this is their third-longest win streak of the season, not to mention that on Friday against Chicago and Orlando, they won their 21st and 22nd home game and undoubtedly possess the most outstanding home record inside Vivint Smart Home Arena, scoring an absurd 118.5 points on their home court.

Donovan Mitchell looks as if he’s about to earn his first All-NBA First-Team selection, averaging 28.1 points with 5.6 assists off 53.1/51.6/95.3 shooting splits during this uptick in play and his accomplice should be a lock for Defensive Player of the Year, averaging 15.7 points, 12 rebounds and an eye-opening 3.3 blocks in the same span.

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2. Brooklyn Nets (35-16, Last Week’s Ranking: 3)

Kevin Durant is slated to finally return from a lingering hamstring issue that’s hampered him since the beginning of February, and with his imminent comeback, the machine will be fully operational. Brooklyn saw their four-game winning streak come to an end against the Bulls on Easter Sunday but still got an ample 24 points out of Kyrie Irving in the loss. Brooklyn’s focus is optimal health since the playoffs aren’t so far away anymore, though being only 1.5 games out of first place in the East doesn’t mean the top seed isn’t attainable. And with all their players (MVP candidate/favorite James Harden included) becoming more and more available for the final stretch, holding home court is also of importance.

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3. Phoenix Suns (35-14, Last Week’s Ranking: 4)

The second seed is well in the grasp of the Suns, who hold a 2.5-game lead over the third-place Clippers in the Western Standings. Devin Booker really got it going last week, averaging an insane 32.7 points, 4 assists, and 3 rebounds in his last three contests. The Suns are on a five-game winning streak, and when Booker dropped his season-high 45 points against the Bulls, that had been the most points he’d score since putting up 48 points in March of 2019, Booker then dropped 32 points against the Hornets, and then 21 points against the Hawks on Friday. That was another personal best for the former Kentucky standout, as it had been the second time this year where he’s had back-to-back games with at least 32 points.

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4. Philadelphia 76ers (34-16, Last Week’s Ranking: 2)

Joel Embiid’s return to the hardwood started off with a bang – not in a good way at first, with Karl Anthony-Towns dunking on him and turning him into somewhat of a meme – but he went off in the comeback game, scoring 24 points while grabbing 8 rebounds in the home win. Philly’s week ended sourly, however, and with the Grizzlies beating an Embiid-less Sixers team due to the MVP candidate missing time as a means of rest, they did so by holding a head-scratchingly un-aggressive Ben Simmons to 7 points on 2 of 6 shooting. The 76ers remain tied in a dead heat with the Nets and have a chance to separate themselves from the pack with trips to Boston, New Orleans, and Oklahoma City this week.

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5. Milwaukee Bucks (32-17, Last Week’s Ranking: 6)

Milwaukee’s right in the thick of things when it comes to competing in the East, and more importantly, they’re locking down their most integral parts to bolster their game plan. They blessed (pun intended) Jrue Holiday on Easter Sunday, signing the two-way guard to a four-year, $135M extension after giving away Eric Bledsoe to the New Orleans Pelicans in exchange for Holiday in the offseason. As a team, the Bucks got out of their two-game slump with a three-game winning streak. A home-court advantage throughout the playoffs isn’t all that unattainable for Milwaukee, for they have the roster and talent to shake things up as a team that’s only a little under 2.5 games out of the Conference lead.

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6. Los Angeles Clippers (33-18, Last Week’s Ranking: 5)

What followed a productive week last week was anything but this week, as the Clippers put forth one of their most inconsistent weeks of the season. They opened the week blowing the doors off of Milwaukee via a 129-105 home win but continued in that same week to lose against Orlando and Denver while ending the week with a dominant blowout over the Lakers, their cross-hallway rivals in the Staples Center on Easter Sunday. Injuries to Marcus Morris, Paul George, Serge Ibaka, and Patrick Beverley have hampered the chances of the third-seeded Clips but recharged when they put new Clipper Rajon Rondo on the floor during a 104-86 rout against his old Laker team. DeMarcus Cousins officially signed his 10-day contract with the Clips and is expected to join the team at some point.

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7. Denver Nuggets (31-18, Last Week’s Ranking: 7)

Aaron Gordon being an acquisition for the Nuggets might be the signature piece that makes them contenders and upsetters in a tight Western Conference. Since getting him before the Trade Deadline, the Nuggets have yet to lose with him on the court as the star forward has been equally omnipresent on the offensive and defensive end. They’ve beaten the likes of fringe contenders like Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles (Clippers), and Jamal Murray, Will Barton, and Michael Porter Jr. picked up a Nugs squad while Nikola Jokic noticeably struggled this past week. Adding Gordon to this team gives them another big body to match up with the likes of LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, and just about any other big wing that chooses to create offense off the bounce, as well as present an additional target for Jokic to dish off some assists to.

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8. Los Angeles Lakers (31-19, Last Week’s Ranking: 8)

For a second-straight week, the Lakers find themselves nearly out of the top-10 for these weekly standings, and should their injury woes continue, they’ll fall even further. A prominent scoring option aside from Kyle Kuzma and Montrezl Harrell is just as necessary as a defibrillator after a heart attack, and quite frankly their chances of getting the West’s No. 1 seed this year are on life support. And prior to them going through the gauntlet of injuries, they finished February 21-6 and looked well enough to keep a home-court advantage. Andre Drummond couldn’t even stay healthy for an entire week, before leaving his first game with a loose toenail. Even worse, while a break in their schedule is needed to help them recalibrate, they aren’t getting one this week; Toronto, Miami, and Brooklyn are up next.

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9. Portland Trail Blazers (30-19, Last Week’s Ranking: 9)

Perhaps the greatest news needs reporting: Jusuf Nurkic is back, and for the most part, the Trail Blazers’ starting five is 100% healthy! That’s something that hasn’t been uttered since the season began, as both CJ McCollum and Nurkic haven’t but played more than five games together this year since the year began. They’ve capitalized in their uptick in health, winning five of their last six, albeit against rebuilding teams while stumbling against playoff teams like the Nets, Mavericks, and Bucks by an average of 20.6 points. Some tough matchups against the Clippers and Jazz this week give yet another opportunity for Terry Stotts’ team members to measure just how competitive they can be against the most tedious foes.

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10. Dallas Mavericks (28-21, Last Week’s Ranking: 10)

Dallas went 4-1 in their longest road trip of the year, finishing strong with a four-game winning streak after Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis sat out their road opener to improve an already expansive 3.5-game lead in the Southwest Division out West. That’s now 18 of the last 25 games that the Mavericks have gotten wins out of, giving them the league’s fourth-best winning percentage and raise their record to six games over .500.

Jalen Brunson has been the guard that Rick Carlisle and Mavs brass had hoped he developed into this season and during this increase in win percentage, the Villanova standout has averaged 13.7 points off an efficient 64.2 percent true shooting percentage. He’s shown he can be trusted enough to control the tempo of the floor, additionally averaging 4.1 assists per game in their last 25 games.

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11. Miami Heat (26-24, Last Week’s Ranking: 16)

It’s an up-and-down season for the Heat, who a few weeks ago looked unstoppable with both Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo in the starting lineup. They head into Tuesday’s game against the Grizzlies with a two-game winning streak, which is coming off the cusp of a six-game losing streak, and that was followed by them winning 11 out of their last 12. Victor Oladipo got his first minutes in a Heat uniform, but even he would like a do-over as the Indiana product has started out his Heat tenure with a sloppy 5-of-21 shooting percentage in his first couple of games.

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12. Atlanta Hawks (26-24, Last Week’s Ranking: 15)

The Hawks raise three spots in this week’s rankings, and for good reason. Nate McMillan’s offense is fluid enough in its ability to allow each guard and wing to flow into a variety of floppy and side PnR actions that generate both simple looks at the rim and one-away, Hi-Lo finds around the perimeter. Moreso, this is a team that can finish in the clutch; Trae Young is tied for fourth in total clutch rating (110.6 Clth. Off. Rtg., per 82Games) with the likes of Damian Lillard, Buddy Hield, and Harrison Barnes, and with help from the bench (new Hawk Lou Williams scored 12 of his 15 points in the fourth and Danilo Gallinari scored 20 of his total 25 points in the second half) the Hawks won their third-straight game. While notable teams in the East struggle in a tight battle from seeds 5-11, the Hawks have crept their way into the fourth seed.

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13. San Antonio Spurs (24-24, Last Week’s Ranking: 11)

San Antonio opened the week with a win and loss to the Kings and then continued to split a series of games that went into overtime against the Atlanta Hawks and the Indiana Pacers. In both their successful results against the Pacers and Hawks, DeMar DeRozan was that aggressive, mid-post scorer that took over and led his team in scoring, which was a first considering that the Spurs hadn’t had the same player lead them in scoring in three straight contests.

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14. New York Knicks (25-26, Last Week’s Ranking: 12)

The Knicks remain in the hunt for a playoff spot as one of the teams in the 4-11 seeds that have nary a margin of error heading into this week. They sit in eighth place and currently have a better record than the Toronto Raptors, and are four losses above them in the column. They have to like where they’re at, as they weren’t even considered to even make it to this point of the season without bottoming out with only seven weeks left. If all goes well and should bad luck transpire for their Eastern opponents, the Knicks could be making the playoffs for the first time in eight years.

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15. Boston Celtics (25-25, Last Week’s Ranking: 13)

Evan Fournier was told that his 0-for-7 debut with the Celtics was to be only but a small “blip of your time as a Celtic” by Head Coach Brad Stevens, and while it seemed that those words of positive reinforcement went in one ear and out of the other (Fournier scored a combined six points in Boston’s consecutive losses to open last week) his tenured advice soon rubbed off on the French swingman.

Boston had been anemic without a playmaking wing with the departure of Gordon Hayward which delivered the deepest cut to a team that had, with his assistance, advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals only a few months prior to the new season beginning this past December. It seems like their search for that exact playmaking hybrid wing has come to an end, if their last two games told Boston fans anything.

In the two games that the Celtics won this week to get them back to a suboptimal-but-even-.500 record, Fournier would score a combined 40 points in his third and fourth outings wearing Green. A shooter of his caliber gives a predictable Boston offense a new dynamic layer and further promulgates a reality that, with an increasingly simple schedule to close out the regular season, Boston can play up to at least the semblance of what was expected of them at season’s opening.

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16. Charlotte Hornets (25-24, Last Week’s Ranking: 14)

Another week, another injury. Charlotte will likely slip if these injury woes continue, as Gordon Hayward is slated to miss four weeks with another sprained right foot, the same injury that kept him out of the majority of the Bubble Playoffs. The Hornets are now missing LaMelo Ball (wrist), and now Terry Rozier will be forced to have an even bigger role in the offense. He’s averaging a little over 20 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 4.4 assists over his past 10 games.

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17. Memphis Grizzlies (24-23, Last Week’s Ranking: 18)

The Grizzlies are getting healthier, and as they are waiting on the return of their star forward Jaren Jackson Jr., they had a very productive 3-1 week and ended it on a great note when they upset the East-leading Philadelphia 76ers, and kept an Embiid-less Sixers team under 110 points in a blowout. They held Ben Simmons to only 7 points off 2-of-6 shooting, and currently have a top-10 defense with the seventh-best defensive rating. After the win, Jonas Valanciunas has recorded a double-double in his past 10 games, and when he records that stat, the Grizzlies are 6-4 on the season.

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18. Golden State Warriors (23-27, Last Week’s Ranking: 19)

Golden State is in, arguably, one of the worst places they’ve been in all season, dropping seven of their last eight while things just aren’t seemingly getting better, Stephen Curry’s efforts to at least keep them competitive aren’t rubbing off. In his last three games since returning from a bruised tailbone, Curry has been averaging 35 points, 7 rebounds, and 3.7 assists and has done everything he can to keep the Warriors in reach of the final play-in tournament spot. What’s worse, is that James Wiseman is showing that he still has a long way to go in order to fit in and produce for a starting lineup. The Dubs’ bench was embarrassingly outscored 55-19 to the Hawks during Sunday’s loss.

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19. Indiana Pacers (22-26, Last Week’s Ranking: 17)

Since returning from Kidney Cancer, Caris LeVert had his best game as a Pacer, scoring 26 points and dishing nine assists in their win over San Antonio. That was only his 12th game in a Pacers uniform, and the win was significant; they were missing both Domantas Sabonis and Malcolm Brogdon weren’t on the floor. The nine assists he had were the most he had since his return.

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20. New Orleans Pelicans (22-27, Last Week’s Ranking: 20)

After their massive win over the Celtics last week, it was looking as if things were finally looking up. And then they weren’t. Health hasn’t been an issue for one of the most offensively balanced teams in basketball, but recently, it has; Zion Williamson avoided serious injury but will miss time with a sprained right thumb, as well as Brandon Ingram, who missed some time with what is being called a “right first MTP irritation”. After not trading Lonzo Ball, the Pelicans backcourt took some major hits with injuries to Josh Hart (torn thumb UCL) and Nickeil Alexander-Walker (ankle) as well as their frontcourt with Steven Adams (concussion). They’ll get some additional artillery by signing former 32-year old All-Star Isaiah Thomas, meaning he’ll get a lump sum of minutes starting Tuesday night.

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21. Chicago Bulls (20-28, Last Week’s Ranking: 22)

The good news is that the Bulls ended a six-game losing streak on Sunday against a Nets team that was missing KD and Harden. The bad news is that the Nikola Vucevic signing hasn’t given the team the boost it needed. Vucevic’s numbers have been good, but the Bulls’ defense has been a problem. In their last seven games, they’ve given up an average of 114 points per game.

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22. Sacramento Kings (22-29, Last Week’s Ranking: 21)

Terence Davis made an instant impact in Sacramento, scoring 27 points in just his fifth game with the Kings, tying for the second-highest scoring output of his two-year career. In Sacramento’s narrow loss to Milwaukee, the 6-foot-4 shooting guard went 7-for-10 from three-point range, giving head coach Luke Walton a high-level backup behind Buddy Hield, who is back as a full-time starter.

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23. Toronto Raptors (20-30, Last Week’s Ranking: 24)

With their rout of the Warriors on Friday night, the Raptors matched their win total for the entire month of March in just two days. That pretty much sums up Toronto’s season, which has been a disaster since it got to 17-17 after a 2-8 start, only to be ruined by COVID-19 issues. On the positive side, despite their abysmal results, the Raptors are just 1.5 games behind Chicago for the 10th and final seed of the play-in tournament.

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  24. Oklahoma City Thunder (20-30, Last Week’s Ranking: 23)

Simply put, while it’s known they are developing talent and instilling confidence in their younger pieces, this Thunder team is just not good. They lost in embarrassing fashion, 132-108, to the lowly Detroit Pistons on Monday, and in their past two games prior to Monday, they’ve lost by 37 to the Suns and 48 to the Trail Blazers. This is a G-League roster, and they are likely primed to capture a high draft pick at season’s end.

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25. Washington Wizards (17-32, Last Week’s Ranking: 25)

Russell Westbrook is putting up triple-doubles as if he’s returned to his MVP self, but the Wizards are starting to lose ground as injuries mount. They’ve dropped three in a row, and Bradley Beal has missed the last four games due to a sore hip. Daniel Gafford played two games for Washington before suffering an ankle injury. Last Monday, Rui Hachimura took another developmental step forward, as he scored 30 points against Charlotte.

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26. Cleveland Cavaliers (18-32, Last Week’s Ranking: 26)

Cleveland has lost five straight games until their win on Monday night, but Kevin Love returned to the lineup for the first time since mid-March at the end of the week, giving the team a glimmer of hope. In two games against Philadelphia and Miami, the five-time All-Star averaged 11.5 points, 7.0 rebounds, and 3.0 assists in 21.5 minutes. Love had only appeared in his fifth and sixth games of the season due to a calf strain.

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27. Orlando Magic (17-33, Last Week’s Ranking: 27)

Reconstruction is underway. The Magic swept the Clippers and Pelicans on the road this week, thanks in part to new forward Wendell Carter Jr.’s contributions. In his last three games, the former Bull has averaged 20 points and 12 rebounds. Chuma Okeke, a rookie guard, is also impressing and making the most of his increased playing time. In his last seven games, Okeke has scored in double figures six times.

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28. Detroit Pistons (15-35, Last Week’s Ranking: 28)

Detroit began the week 2-0, with victories over Toronto and Washington, before losing to the Knicks by 44 points on Saturday. The Pistons’ perimeter defense was non-existent, allowing the Knicks to shoot 19-for-39 from beyond the arc. With 14 points, newcomer Hamidou Diallo led Detroit in scoring, but he also had a minus-36 plus-minus in 24 minutes, which is difficult to achieve.

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29. Houston Rockets (13-37, Last Week’s Ranking: 29)

Since arriving in Houston as part of the Victor Oladipo trade with Miami, Kelly Olynyk has been productive. In the five games he has played, Olynyk, who will be a free agent this offseason, has led the Rockets with an average of 18.5 points on 58.2 percent shooting from the field. Though given a small sample, The early returns on an Olynyk/Christian Wood combination have not been encouraging, however. Houston has been outscored by 27 points in the 48 minutes that the duo has played together.

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30. Minnesota Timberwolves (13-38, Last Week’s Ranking: 30)

Anthony Edwards has gotten a lot of coverage, and rightfully so, but the Wolves’ other first-round choice is also on the rise. Jaden McDaniels’ defensive versatility is impressing teammates, and he was given assignments against James Harden and Ja Morant during his trial by fire last week. The Wolves are looking for signs of progress, and McDaniels’ ability to turn into a stopper could help.