And just like that, the First Round of the Western Conference Playoffs are over. We’re on to the second round and as the true playoff atmosphere returns with vaccinated fans re-entering stadiums to fill the capacity limit, business is picking up. Though the semifinals in the East started up on Saturday evening with the Bucks being manhandled by the Brooklyn Nets to fall behind 0-1 to the gargantuan Nets offense, we will officially be in the second level of the postseason as soon as the Nuggets and Suns tip-off on Monday evening. The Jazz and Clippers, who respectively handled their business in their first-round series, will clash in a high-stakes, stacked matchup to determine who gets the second berth in this year’s Western Conference Finals.

Source: CBS Sports

Both series feature the final four best teams left in the warzone that is the Western Conference, and result-wise and statistically, these teams have earned the right to continue their seasons and improve their odds of hoisting up the Larry O’Brien trophy at the end of the year.

And so, we’ll delve into these two matchups, who has the advantage, statistical accolades earned over the course of the season, and reveal the two likeliest favorites to play in this year’s conference finals with yet another postseason predictions and matchup breakdown.

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No. 4 Los Angeles Clippers vs. No. 1 Utah Jazz

Dec 17, 2020; Los Angeles, California, USA; LA Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard (2) passes off between Utah Jazz forward Royce O’Neale (23) and center Rudy Gobert (27) during the first quarter at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY Sports

While the Utah Jazz won’t have the goal of reaching a perfect postseason record, they handled business by winning four straight games by an average of 11.3 points after losing Game 1 to the Memphis Grizzlies by three in shocking fashion. They found a way to score consistently and keep Dillon Brooks largely out of every other game in the series after he dropped a game-high 31 points.

What was that “adjustment”, you ask? Oh, just getting Donovan Mitchell back in the building and on the floor, which did enough to get Mike Conley Jr. enough space to create and attack bigs in the Pick and Roll and provide Rudy Gobert a litany of touches and a good ball handler to make screen assists for and mismatches for easy looks at the rim.

The Jazz portrayed themselves as the league’s third-most efficient offense that they’ve been all year, posting an otherworldly 124.6 offensive rating in the first round of the Western Playoffs, good for the second-best offensive rating (per 100 possessions) in this year’s playoffs.

And while it was Mitchell that looked every part of an MVP candidate averaging 26.4 points, 4.4 rebounds, and 5.2 assists off 47/40/94 splits through four games, Mike Conley Jr. winded back the hands of time with some scintillating road performances against the Grizzlies, his old franchise that he became their all-time scorer at. Conley averaged 17.4 points off 47/55/100 splits all series and in game three, the first of the series inside Conley’s old stomping grounds of the FedEx Forum, edged his Jazz over the top with a signature 27 points off 8-for-16 shooting for a 10-point win.

Grizzlies budding star Ja Morant did all he could, becoming the second-highest scorer in the history of the league in their playoff debut, but the Jazz’s team-wide ability to stretch the floor with nearly four to five perimeter scorers on the floor in nearly every Quin Snyder rotation, the team fixed their mishaps from Game one and didn’t look back, shooting a team-wide 35.7 percent from downtown as the NBA’s third-best three-point shooting team in the league during the regular season.

Which makes this matchup between the resilient and synergetic Jazz all the more exciting. Star power may be anemic, but the sense of all-around team ability is pungent between these two high-octane offenses. The Clippers finished the regular season as the best three-point shooting team in the NBA, percentage-wise, and while the Jazz hold a 2-1 season lead over the Clippers, two of the three games were decided by single digits, with the largest win against the Clippers being by 18 points back on February 17th in the Staples Center.

The playoffs are a different story, and these Clippers are grizzled, battle-tested, and hungrily on a mission to redeem their Conference semifinals woes that have hung over their heads like black clouds since their inception. Since 2015, the Clippers have appeared in two conference semifinals but still haven’t advanced to the Conference Finals in franchise history.

Kawhi Leonard reverted back to his 2019 ways and was a man amongst boys this series when it seemed like the deck was stacked against them, averaging around 32 points, 5 rebounds, and 8 assists off 61 percent shooting and put the team on his back in what would have been a consequential Game 6 loss had they folded in the fourth quarter.

Leonard assumed the position of the take-us-home Alpha Male, both scoring 45 points on 18-for-25 shooting and finally taking heed of the responsibility of shutting down Luka Doncic on the other end in crunch time. Better yet, he continued displaying the two-way dominance that fans were waiting on him to show with his new team by dropping 28 points off 10-for-15 shooting and doing the same to a fatigued Doncic in the fourth quarter of Game 7, manually completing the Clipper comeback when folks wrote off their season as soon as they fell behind 2-0 to the Mavericks and couldn’t win a home game in the series until Game 7.

So looking at the tale of the tape, there are a bunch of factors that will likely determine who wins, but none more important than these four: 1.) Kawhi Leonard and Paul George’s creation of mismatches in the halfcourt, 2.) Three-point shooting for both teams, 3.) The productivity of Utah’s backcourt against the Clippers’ combination of physical, lengthy wings, and 4.) Rudy Gobert/Derrick Favors’ gravity and presence both rolling to the rim and on the interior against the Clippers’ frontcourt.

Utah’s second-most-efficient offense in the playoffs will have their hands full in trying to get to their spots against a Clippers team that loves to switch (maybe a little too much, after watching the first few games of the Clippers – Mavs series) and is intent on taking away driving angles as a Top-8 defense this season. But, as mentioned in our prior Western Conference playoff predictions, Utah could be licking at their chops in their intent on attacking the second-worst Pick and Roll-defending team in the NBA with two guards – not just Luka Doncic in a starting lineup – that run the halfcourt set ad nauseam.

Conversely, with the star power of both Leonard and George (who averaged 24 points, 6 rebounds, and 9 assists off 48 percent this series) as well as the balance of this roster, it won’t be easy for Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley to jumpstart the offense if space is air-tight for 48 minutes all series.

Prediction: Clippers beat Jazz 4-2.

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No. 3 Denver Nuggets vs. No. 2 Phoenix Suns

DeAndre Ayton #22 of the Phoenix Suns looks to pass around Nikola Jokic #15 of the Denver Nuggets during the NBA game at Phoenix Suns Arena on January 23, 2021, in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

Tipping off at 10 p.m. ET on TNT tonight will be a much-anticipated duel between the third-seeded Denver Nuggets and the Chris Paul-led Phoenix Suns, who shocked the world by defeating LeBron James’ Los Angeles Lakers in six games during the Western Conference First Round. The Nuggets are also a team that defied expectations (certainly ours) by beating Damian Lillard’s Portland Trail Blazers by outlasting the scoring onslaught from the superstar backcourt of Lillard and CJ McCollum while Denver’s offense was largely carried by MVP favorite Nikola Jokic (33 points off 53/43/92 splits) and budding star Michael Porter Jr., who averaged 13.2 points off 49/39/78 splits in his second-ever postseason.

Denver has dominated the season series 2-1, with all three games being decided by an average of five points. Their biggest win was a four-point win on January 22 by a score of 130-126 as Nikola Jokic gave DeAndre Ayton the work, scoring a game-high 31 points with 10 rebounds and 8 assists. But, these teams played each other tightly, with two of the three games going into overtime this season.

We have yet to see a hiccup from these Nuggets with Jokic being the caboose of the Nuggets’ train that hasn’t really stopped since the early-April season-ending injury suffered by superstar guard Jamal Murray. They are playing a confident brand of ball, operating in a Michael Malone motion offense that’s diverse in touches and opportunities for players like third-year standout Monte Morris and longtime veteran Austin Rivers to step up in Murray’s absence.

As a team, the Nuggets were the sixth-best offense in basketball this season, posting a 116.3 offensive rating per 100 possessions while simultaneously being a respectable top-15 defensive team, only allowing 111.5 opponent points in the same metric. Now granted, that lacks some context with a group of players currently inactive impacting those statistical marks. But in the scale of the playoffs, the Nuggets are averaging a 122.9 offensive rating, which makes them the third-most efficient offense among the teams still left in the pool.

On the other end of the spectrum, however, the Nuggets are in the bottom quadrant of defensive teams as the 13th-ranked playoff team in points allowed – which doesn’t tell the full story considering their efforts in Game 5 of the series in which they allowed a ghastly 147 points in four quarters and two overtimes, and just couldn’t stop the heroics of Damian Lillard that day, who ended scoring a playoff career-high 55 points – as the Nuggets handled business in the second half of game 6 and kept Lillard virtually scoreless in the fourth quarter for a 1-11 shooting effort, which ended his season.

Additionally, the constant ball pressure from their backcourt combinations gave CJ McCollum troubles in alleviating some of the load from Lillard late down the stretch, and the cold streak became contagious for the entire team during their 126-115 loss, which could immediately start the rebuild of the Trail Blazers with Lillard possibly seeking playing time elsewhere in a winning market.

And as is the case for Denver, Phoenix was not highly touted as a 2 seed, ironically, against a banged-up Lakers team even with the implication of Playoff LeBron showing up at some point and wreaking havoc on the inexperienced Suns (who are the youngest team in the playoffs) who hadn’t seen a playoff series win, or playoff appearance, in eleven years.

But fate would have different plans for Devin Booker and Chris Paul’s Suns, who stormed out of the gates and won Game one convincingly. Here’s how it went, explained as briefly as possible:

Booker scored the most points in a playoff debut in NBA history and continued to further reveal his superstardom to the basketball universe, the second unit – most noticeably Cameron Payne, who averaged 12.5 points off of 42/42/100 splits in his third-ever playoff appearance – stepped up mightily when Chris Paul experienced sudden shoulder and nerve pains in the middle of Game 1, Monty Williams’ defensive schemes restricted a hampered and aging LeBron James to jumpers when the Suns went on runs, DeAndre Ayton kept Anthony Davis quiet for a majority of the series, and the Phoenix Suns did what hadn’t been done since the Steve Nash/Amare Stoudamire days: win a playoff series.

And because of that masterclass of a defensive effort against the NBA’s most efficient offense (per offensive rating), the Suns are the best defensive team in the Western playoffs so far with an insanely impressive 102.6 defensive rating. Offensively, they could be better as the 12th ranked offense left in the playoffs, but they certainly will embrace the challenge with quite arguably the most dangerous two-guard combination left in the Western playoff picture.

If the three regular-season duels told us anything about this series, it’s that it will be balanced, tightly contested, technical, and orchestrated by two exceptional on-ball operators and passers in Paul and Jokic.

Unfortunately, NBA fans will not have the luxury to enjoy two masterful isolation bucket getters in Booker and Murray face off against each other in a crucial playoff series as Denver will surely miss the special dynamic of having their three-level scorer bend defenses to his whim, but in his place will be the emerging Michael Porter Jr., who is growing in total skill set but will have to meet a now experienced Mikal Bridges that just got done matching up with LeBron James for six games. Ultimately, it’s going to be up to Jokic in creating offense for himself and others while surveying defenses from the low post and wing. Also, expect the Joker to be a constant pick and pop threat who can literally shoot over anyone if need be.

This series will come down to its stars performing when the lights are the brightest, but bench points and role players will always play the biggest part in determining who advances to the Western Conference Finals. Denver’s rotation of guards is also getting healthier and as players like Will Barton and PJ Dozier expect to re-join the team at some point this series, pieces like rookie Facundo Campazzo as well as veterans like Aaron Gordon and Paul Millsap are there to assist Jokic and these Nuggets on getting back to the Conference Finals, the place they finished their season off by losing in six to the eventual champion Los Angeles Lakers.

And even if Phoenix is having one of those “destiny” seasons with health on their side as well as Devin Booker playing the best ball of his career, it’s hard to deny Malone’s Nuggets, since Jokic has averaged 25.7 points against them in the three times he’s played Phoenix this year. The Nuggets have already been through the wringer of stopping an elite backcourt with a frontcourt compilation of Aaron Gordon and JaMychal Green off of switches, but have enough talent and experience to neutralize both Chris Paul and Devin Booker when the moment calls for it.

Prediction: Nuggets beat Suns 4-3.  

Well, that was fun.

Weekend one of the 2020-21 NBA Playoffs certainly didn’t underwhelm in any aspect of its expectation and as certain stars rose to the occasion at the beginning of their postseason’s, others had a bit of a slower start. Now, of course, there’s no reason to grow anxious if you’re one of the teams that stumbled out of the blocks since the first game of each series went down in a matter of two days. But, after each game, all teams have notes on how some defensive coverages could be tweaked to make future game plans more malleable, and they all have some bulletin board material to fire up their teams heading into games 2 and 3 of their respective series.

For the Eastern Conference playoffs, top-seeded Philadelphia handled business against visiting Washington to move up to 1-0 in the series, as Tobias Harris and Joel Embiid made quick work of the 20th-ranked defense in basketball. The Brooklyn Nets shut rising star Jayson Tatum down and their big three let it rain from the heavens against shorthanded Boston, Milwaukee held serve at home and Trae Young silenced 15,000 raucous Knicks fans with one fellow floater to win game 1 in one of the more satisfying starts to the postseason that we’ve seen in a while.

And on the Western side of the league’s hemisphere, the league-best Utah Jazz shot 12/47 from three in a three-point upset loss to the eighth-seeded Memphis Grizzlies, Chris Paul’s Phoenix Suns handled business against a slow-starting Anthony Davis-LeBron James frontcourt duo of the Los Angeles Lakers for a 99-90 home win, the Portland Trail Blazers trounced the Denver Nuggets with a 123-109 road win, and Luka Doncic’s Dallas Mavericks kept the duo of Paul George and Kawhi Leonard practically scoreless in the final two minutes in the fourth quarter of a 113-103 and allowed Doncic to rack up 31-point Triple Double in his second-ever playoff series.

A lot transpired in a matter of a weekend, and we’ll get to that during a Power Rankings after all teams’ first sightings of the 2020-21 playoffs.

*Disclaimer*- for the sake of brevity, we won’t be writing about every team, but rather showcase the leaders of all eight playoff series, how those teams are leading their individual series and what the teams that are losing must/will do to get back in the runnings to advance to the next round — and take one of the spots on this list, too.

So let’s get to it.

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1. No. 1 Philadelphia 76ers (49-23, 1-0 vs. No. 8 Washington Wizards in First Round)

Philly left no stone unturned during their 125-118 home defense against a struggling Washington Wizards offense that was only kept alive by the efforts of Bradley Beal, who caught fire in the third quarter and finished with 33 points, 6 assists, and 10 rebounds off 13-for-23 shooting during their 125-118 loss. Meanwhile, when Joel Embiid was successfully denied the ball for a majority of the actions that Philly ran on the elbow (especially late in the fourth), it seemed like Philadelphia went to the well and got increasingly good looks while Washington’s youthful-but-limited frontcourt led by Rui Hachimura failed to cover Tobias Harris, who is off to an efficient start to his 2020-21 postseason campaign.

It’s no secret that Harris saw his best career numbers under Doc Rivers this year and in years past — at one point, he was the most efficient Power Forward in the league as a Clipper before he was dealt to the 76ers in 2019 — and that showed itself during a game-high 37-point outing in which the 10-year veteran amassed 29 shot attempts.

And while Ben Simmons wasn’t actively looking at the rim with a multitude of mismatches during runs where Russell Westbrook and Ish Smith shared floor time as he only had nine shot attempts and was four points away from a Triple-Double, he surely stopped opposing defenders from doing so in the second half. The likely Defensive Player of the Year kept a struggling Russell Westbrook frustrated for the entire game, and as his jumper wasn’t falling off of empty-side isolation looks, Simmons (with the help of Philly’s starter-bench lineup combinations with defenders like Matisse Thybulle off of the bench) kept him from frequently driving to the rack.

He helped Philly secure a 115.3 defensive rating through four quarters of game one, and Joel Embiid helped with the rest after every open look. Embiid finished game one of his playoff start with 30 points off 9-for-16 shooting and got to the line a lot with 13 free throw attempts. There were a bunch of times that Alex Len and Robin Lopez looked like rag dolls trying to fight on the glass against Embiid on the low block, so for the rest of this series, Scott Brooks has to find a way to make Embiid uncomfortable.

Should they fail to do so, this series will be short-lived.

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2. No. 2 Brooklyn Nets (48-24, 1-0 vs. No. 7 Boston Celtics in First Round)

Make no mistake: forget your feelings on how certain actions and adjacent actions that should be run for each guy on the floor and the organizational purity of your offense, this game will always be about a bucket, and your defender-breaking stars making guys miss to break coverages down and find even better looks to wide-open scorers on the corners or at the top of the key.

That’s just the law of hoop.

For Brooklyn, their iffy start against a Boston team that jumped in front of them by double-digits in game one turned into a non-factor once James Harden and Kevin Durant got their feet under them, let alone Kyrie Irving’s fiery 29 points.

Boston was already up against a seismic challenge missing Jaylen Brown as it is, but with Brooklyn playing at the pace in which they perform, Boston just doesn’t have the talent to A) control the tempo of the floor, B) offensively, afford to trade buckets with the likes of three of the greatest floor spacers in the history of the sport during Nash’s placement of his close-out five on the court, and C) stay in front of those three to get timely stops when their two scorers in Kemba Walker and Jayson Tatum (who were inefficient and out of sorts in the second half — including during a nine-period in which they, and the rest of the Celtics, couldn’t even score a point) couldn’t maintain a puncher’s chance at victory.

Irving, Durant, and Harden accounted for 82 of Brooklyn’s 104 points, as opposed to Boston’s 93 points as a team. They looked spry and loose, and the only other Net to score in double-digits was Joe Harris, who scored 10 points off 4-11 shooting. Though the Nets only shot 41.7 percent from the field as a team, Boston’s insufficiency of talent overrode that, as the Celtics only scored 40 points in the second half, compared to Brooklyn’s combined 57 points in the third and fourth quarters.

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3. No. 2 Phoenix Suns (51-21, 1-0 vs. No. 7 Los Angeles Lakers in First Round)

Devin Booker — have a day, sir.

How’s that for a first-ever playoff performance? With layers of adversity piled onto his 24-year-old self before tip-off, he delivered in only a way the two-time All-Star could, giving the No. 1 most defensively efficient team in basketball the work while Chris Paul couldn’t go with a shoulder contusion that kept him out of action for a majority of Phoenix’s Game one victory over the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers — and first franchise playoff win in over a decade.

After seven long years of carrying a franchise through unimaginable hardship, Booker might want to keep the game ball his first playoff appearance and store it somewhere safe. And for one of the most-heralded and respected hoopers in all of the league, he made his first playoff minutes pretty memorable. Booker put up the most-ever points in a playoff debut — 34 of them off 13-for-26 shooting to be exact — and propelled the Suns past the slow-starting Lakers during a team-wide defensive masterclass while undermanned. When it seemed like the offense stalled off in the sudden wake of Paul’s scary shoulder injury in the second quarter, Booker filled in for the guy who largely contributed to getting them there in the first place.

He had to leave the game twice, the second after testing the shoulder while the Suns were up by 15 in the third quarter. But, as soon as he left, the Lakers exploded for an 8-0 run. The Suns ended the quarter with a comfortable 13-point lead, yes, but Paul’s injury is undoubtedly a make-or-break variable in a series that both LeBron James (18 points off 6-for-13 shooting in G1) and Anthony Davis (13 points off 5-for-16 shooting) won’t go down quietly in. Davis “took full responsibility” for the no-show he had against Phoenix since the last time he played them, he scored a season-high 42 points without LeBron James on the floor.

2018 first-overall pick DeAndre Ayton showed no fear in stopping arguably the best power forward in basketball while matched up with him all afternoon, but that’ll have to continue for an entire series if the Suns are to keep the Lakers out of games for what could be a franchise-altering upset.

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4. No. 3 Milwaukee Bucks (46-26, 1-0 vs. No. 6 Miami Heat in First Round)

So while it seems like Miami has their eggs in a basket on how to contain Giannis Antetokounmpo and eliminate him from Milwaukee’s game plan in the halfcourt, so can the Bucks in their neutralization of Jimmy Butler, if game one showed us anything.

The kickoff game to the 2020-21 playoffs certainly did not disappoint, capped off with an Overtime period and game-winner by Milwaukee’s go-home halfcourt shot creator and pure scorer in Khris Middleton with only 0.7 seconds on the clock left after heaving up a Kobe Bryant-esque fade away, as the ball splashed through the nylon and over the reach of leading-scorer Duncan Robinson.

When things broke down during Mike Budenholzer’s running of halfcourt sets, it was Middleton who came through, scoring a game-high 27 points off of a fairly efficient 10-for-22 shooting. While Antetokounmpo showed why he’s been an MVP favorite for nearly four-straight years with a 26-point outing by mainly scoring in transition, he still showed difficulty scoring on Bam Adebayo, who Giannis didn’t attempt a shot against when matched up against him for 53 minutes in Game one of the series.

Conversely, for the Bucks, they’ll like what they saw on film in their attempts to limit Jimmy Butler’s offensive output, as they forced him to shoot a grotesque 4-for-22 from the field. Antetokounmpo was his primary defender, and his length proved problematic for the small forward as he went 2-for-6 against Butler in the halfcourt guarding Butler for 31.8 partial possessions. PJ Tucker was the additional switching help for when Giannis was placed onto another defender, and on Tucker he saw even less success, going 0-for-6 against Milwaukee’s new Trade Deadline acquisition.

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5. No. 6 Portland Trail Blazers (42-30, 1-0 vs. No. 3 Denver Nuggets in First Round)

Portland handed the Nuggets one of their most convincing losses of the weekend, beating the No. 3 seeded Nuggets by a score of 123-109 in a winning effort a few prognosticators could see coming a mile away.

In the playoffs, halfcourt isolation scorers that draw attention and space the floor for your offense come at a premium, and if you lack that, preferably at the guard spot, those places of anemia show themselves more often than not. That wasn’t the case for Portland, who were led by a dominant Damian Lillard with a decisive 34 points in 40 minutes, which led all scorers. Backcourt cohort CJ McCollum didn’t trail his teammate by too much either, as with the introduction of halfcourt adjustments that worked to take away Lillard from his usual touches came the downpour of McCollum’s 21 points off 8-for-20 shooting in 36 minutes.

While a pesky-but-mismatched and smaller defender like Facundo Campazzo was on Lillard and limited his shot attempts (was guarded by him for a total of 7:32 and 26.7 partial possessions, and Lillard scored 16 points against him off of 4-for-10 shooting) it was even worse for Monte Morris and Nikola Jokic, who allowed Lillard to score a combined 14 points off of a 54.8 percent shooting performance through four quarters. Guard productivity is what wins NBA titles, and with Jamal Murray out for the season and, other than Nikola Jokic, in the mid-post, no other real shot-creator in the starting five that can give the Blazers anything to worry about. However, MVP favorite Jokic won’t lie down after one suboptimal outing, so it’ll be interesting to see what he can do for the rest of the series.

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6. No. 5 Dallas Mavericks (42-30, 1-0 vs. No. 4 Los Angeles Clippers  in First Round)

Luka Doncic was just one of the many young superstars that showed he’s next up to take the throne and title of the game’s best player with a run-of-the-mill 31-point Triple-Double against the league’s No. 8 defense, showing flashes of just what he can bring to Dallas and how good he really is going to be once the 22-year-old guard/forward hybrid reaches his prime.

And that’s a scary sight. As we mentioned that the Mavericks are one of the most pick and roll-reliant teams in the NBA (No. 2 in the league in total PnR sets per game when Doncic has the ball in his hands, he’s always looking to attack defenses when they’re showing heavy drop coverage (or in other words, when guards and bigs are at the top of the key, and the big takes the roll man out of the play by backpedaling and protecting the rim, instead of defending the much-shiftier guard off the switch).

And remember, Los Angeles leads the league in giving up buckets to PnR scorers, so Doncic’s 31-10-11 off of their inability to contain him in game one is, by all means, concerning. Giving the Clippers credit though; They found a way to slow Doncic down in the fourth, but by that time, the damage was done at the expense of a 10-point deficit the Clippers allowed even when Kawhi Leonard and Paul George combined for 49 points in their home loss.

Tyronn Lue’s Clippers did little to stop Doncic’s run and bring extra attention to get the ball out of his hands early on, opting for a bunch of screen-to-single coverage looks in which Doncic collapsed their defensive looks on routine.

One thing about Dallas in the regular season was that they disallowed teams to get into the game once they won the first quarter, and they brought that same sentiment into game one of the series with a 33-30 first-quarter lead. The Clippers will probably have something for Doncic so they can get out to a quick stop while limiting his opportunities to punish them further, but they have a solid game plan to keep them at bay and, possibly, take this series the distance.

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7. No. 8 Memphis Grizzlies (38-34, 1-0 vs. No. 1 Utah Jazz in First Round)

Listen…if the new era of Grit n’ Grind isn’t here yet…I don’t know when it’ll get here.

World, meet Dillon Brooks – a gritty, relentless, two-way player and world-beater who would probably be the type to embrace the challenge of being in a Fatal four-Way Steel Cage match against Genghis Khan, Atilla The Han, and Joan of Arc just to get the competitive juices flowing.

But the thing is, the 25-year old two-guard by way of Mississauga, Canada is too busy putting the world on notice about how fearless he is, as well as his young teammates. He’s knocked off the likes of San Antonio’s DeMar DeRozan and the greatest shooter ever in Steph Curry in back-to-back contests during the 2020-21 Play-In Tournament, and with Memphis’ shocking 112-109 road victory over league-best Utah in game one of their first-round series, proceeding to lock up Utah’s combination of scoring guards while dropping a game-high 31 points off 13-26 shooting.

And while it was a night that Jazz fans will likely put behind them since they were not at full capacity in the health department with Donovan Mitchell set to make his return to the court during game two, these young and hungry Grizzlies aren’t just living up to the hype — they’re rising to the moment, playing like they’ve got zero to lose and everything to prove. It takes a lot of moxy to run the table as a ninth seed and qualify for the NBA Playoffs, a first for Memphis since ex-Grizzly and current Jazz guard Mike Conley Jr. did it with a completely different team back in 2017, but steal the spotlight on the biggest center stage of their young career — against the best team in the NBA!

It goes to show that the league is in good hands for the next few years (and that goes for a variety of different franchises across the league), as the youth-veteran combination of Ja Morant – Desmond Bane – Dillon Brooks – Kyle Anderson – Jonas Valanciunas has produced the highest net rating (109.5) and second-highest offensive rating (166.7) on the team in their first playoff game together.

It’s more of a secondary lineup when Jaren Jackson Jr. sits, but this small lineup, in particular, is a problem to deal with in the open court. Switching aside, it allowed for shot creators like Brooks and Morant to find their spots in the midrange as well as get to the rim with preferable ease, and with that speedy lineup, put pressure on the gaps of the passing lanes so that outside scorers like rookie Desmond Bane can get his looks and can them with space and confidence.

As it goes for Utah in stopping these Grizzlies, who feel like they can swing with the best of ’em, they need to get healthy, and relatively soon. With Mitchell’s return to the lineup, that’ll likely re-create the dynamic of offense they won 52 games with, as Mitchell, who is a blaze with the ball in his hands, is perhaps the best player to get a shot off of the dribble, and more importantly, an effective guard who can run both point and score off-ball as a natural two-guard.

That 12-for-47 night from deep may be a thing of the past if they generate clean looks out of their actions, now that they’ll have their speedy ballhandler that’ll manipulate defenses with his decisions in the middle of the floor.

But these Grizzlies aren’t afraid of a challenge that goes up in difficulty if this past week told fans anything they need to know.

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8. No. 5 Atlanta Hawks (41-31, 1-0 vs. No. 4 New York Knicks in First Round)

And this is why we love the NBA!

15,000 chants of F*** Trae Young inside of Madison Square Garden from screaming, ravenous Knicks fans (for the largest gathering in New York City since the beginning of the pandemic) during a 107-107 stalemate, suddenly silenced by a nasty dribble counter and blowby on the confusingly subbed-in Frank Ntilikina and floater against drop coverage with 0.9 on the clock remaining to give the Hawks their first postseason win since the 2015 season, where they advanced all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals.

“It’s quiet as f*** in here!” exclaimed Young, the former Oklahoma standout, 2018 National Player of the Year and Fifth-Overall Pick crushed the dreams and aspirations of a Knicks playoff win inside MSG for the first time in eight years by exploiting the switch and chink in the armor of Tom Thibodeau’s No. 1-ranked defense in the NBA when the first-year Knicks Head Coach put in Ntilikina in for Derrick Rose, who quite literally seconds ago made a game-tying floater to tie it up and make the Hawks burn their final Timeout.

And then Trae Young — who prior (and obviously after that), became the new Public Enemy Numero Uno in New York City by leaving whatever matchup he had in the dust, scoring 32 points, dishing 10 assists while grabbing 7 rebounds in his first-ever playoff appearance inside the World’s Most Famous Arena, in front of the largest and loudest crowd he’s played in front of all season — does THAT. Hawks win 109-107 in a tight duel that barely hits the cover if you’re a betting man/woman.

Atlanta had to have been swiping their brow over the fact that probable All-NBA First or Second-Team staple Julius Randle put up arguably one of his worst stat-lines ever, only scoring 15 points off of 6-for-23 shooting from the field and 2-for-6 shooting from deep, but Knicks fans probably feel a little bit of optimism knowing that they may have taken the best blow the Hawks had to offer from the likes of Young, Bogdan Bogdanovic (18 points off 7-for-15 shooting), and three-time Sixth Man of the Year Lou Williams (13 points off the bench off of 6-for-9 shooting and 1-for-1 shooting from deep) while their bench outscored Atlanta’s 64 to 31.

Oh yeah, and that they only lost by two when their lone All-Star shot under 27 percent.

Atlanta escaped this one, opting to go to the well of continuous Spain PnR looks with the offense running through Trae Young’s ballhandling and Clint Capela’s hard diving to the rack at the end of the game. But unlike game one (or, so they hope) these Knicks aim to take those away in crunch time and get their starters going more quickly in future games this series. So adjustments and counter-adjustments will come like pawns, kings, and queens moving across a Chessboard.

But this WILL be a good series, and one to keep an eye on as the ninth-best offense in basketball and top defense in the game collide for what could be a battle that goes seven games.

Source: pngkey.com

As the Memphis Grizzlies came out on top over the Golden State Warriors after an exciting overtime win on the road inside the Chase Center the second-annual NBA Play-In Tournament this evening, the 2020-21 NBA Playoff picture is 100 percent set in stone. The first tip-off of the postseason between the hosting Milwaukee Bucks and defending Eastern Conference champion Miami Heat will take place at 2 p.m. ET on ABC.

72 games have come and gone just like that for the 16 teams left in the field after the dust has settled, meaning that for the next two months, NBA fans will be enthralled and encased in the yearly chaos and high-stakes war of attrition that is the postseason, the most wonderful time of the year.

For the Western Conference, the eight-team tournament is set, with the Memphis Grizzlies earning the eighth and final seed over the Golden State Warriors in a winner-take-all consolation game for the final seed during last night’s Play-In Tournament wrap-up, as Ja Morant, Dillon Brooks, and crew sent the Dubs off in OT, finishing Stephen Curry’s Warriors to an earlier-than-usual off-season with a 117-112 road win.

And as that set up a much-anticipated first-round matchup between the Grizzlies and top-seeded Utah Jazz, and a somber reunion of two generations of Grizzlies basketball with the impending return of not only the Memphis Grizzlies in the postseason for the first time since the 2016-17 season, but the anticipated return of Mike Conley Jr. in the playoffs, but this time in a different jersey as his Jazz seek out championship aspirations in a historic year for the franchise. And the same can be said for the rest of the bloodbath-resembling West with one outlook.

We’ll get into each entertaining first-round series, give you the scoop on the most pertinent stats that’ll likely be the X-Factor in each series, and give you our predictions on how each series will turn out, with some outcomes being either more concrete than others.

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No. 8 Memphis Grizzlies (38-34) vs. No. 1 Utah Jazz (52-20)

Russell Isabella-USA TODAY Sports

Utah won this season’s series against the Wizards 3-0 and every win against them this year has been, on average, won by a margin of 5.8 points. They’ve shown that, though they’ve had their battles with one another, it’s taken little difficulty to handle Memphis.

But, there’s a new ferocity, a new focus, and a newfound level of confidence in these growing Grizzlies, who enter their first postseason in four years and after out-lasting Stephen Curry’s offensive onslaught in the final Play-In Tournament, will be playing like anything but inexperienced underdogs, laying everything on the line with virtually nothing to lose.

The Grizzlies’ started out their season slowly of the gates with their 2-6 record, and due to their onset injury woes, looked like they were in for a long year before they started piling a slew of six straight wins even following a significant COVID-19 outbreak that forced them to adjust their schedule and postpone multiple weeks worth of games. Even worse, they stayed afloat but never really flourished due to the struggle of asserting a sense of chemistry with an ever-shifting starting five, made more abhorrent with Ja Morant’s ankle injury that sidelined him during a crucial stretch in the weeks of January.

Factor in the seeping reality of not having sharpshooting two-way big Jaren Jackson in the lineup for a majority of your season (left Meniscus rehabilitation) and those initial expectations of landing back into that play-in tournament spot would grow in credibility. Things started looking up after they survived against the Spurs in the first of two play-in games and then defeated the Warriors two nights later. To their credit, they’ve defied a bunch of sportsbook odds and qualified for the playoffs for the first time in nearly a half-decade.

So for their efforts, they’ll be awarded the Utah Jazz in the first round of the playoffs, the Western Conference’s No. 1 team, and the squad with the best record in the NBA.

But honestly, let’s just cut to the meat and potatoes here: the historical significance of this first-round matchup tells the story. Not only are the Grizzlies back into the playoff fray for the first time in four years, but they’ll do so against the team they traded Mike Conley Jr. to, who just so happens to be Memphis’s all-time franchise leader in total points. The acquisition of the second-overall pick in the 2019 Draft capitulated the philosophy of the Grit N’ Grind Era in Memphis being timeless, as father time finally laid its claws on the Grizzlies’ franchise following the year of 2017.

After Kawhi Leonard’s San Antonio Spurs sent Memphis home (the Grizzlies lost at home but, well, you get the saying), their ages and expiring contracts from the likes of Rudy Gay, Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph, and Mike Conley Jr. began to permeate the future they planned on investing in, and therefore in forthcoming years, older guys seemed new pastures and the rebuild began. It was until the 2017-18 season that saw them draft Jaren Jackson Jr. out of Michigan State with the third-overall selection and the 2018-19 season that allowed these Grizzlies to land the second-overall pick in Ja Morant out of Murray State…Mike Conley’s inevitable replacement.

Though Morant played under Conley’s wing, the Ohio State standout was shockingly dealt to the Utah Jazz last season in an effort to put the aging but highly-skilled Conley on a title-contending team. Now, it seems like that promise came into fruition, as Utah posted the league’s best record in such an abridged season.

This means that, after Games 1 and 2 inside Utah’s humble abode of Vivint Smart Home Arena, Games 3, 4, and possibly 6 should the series extend that far, will be some of the more somber moments in Grizzlies history, but a burgeoning reminder of not just what they’ve lost, but what they’ve gained in the new era of Grizzlies basketball.

On the surface, Utah looks like a run-and-gun, high-octane offense that will bullet down the court in transition and beat you in the open court with superstar guard Donovan Mitchell slashing and flashing down the court at high speeds, but they finished the 2020-21 season ranked 18th in the pace metric. In the halfcourt is where Utah shines, however, and it’s usually up to the league’s fifth-most efficient scorer in Mitchell to score on any matchup and help the league’s third-ranked offense win games.

The problem with this matchup for Memphis, however, is that even with some exceptional ball-stoppers in Dillon Brooks and Kyle Anderson and youth being on their side, Utah beats you in a variety of ways: both with the deep ball as the fourth-ranked offense from behind the three-line, and in the halfcourt as a balanced and purely-selfless “one-pass-away” offense. Quin Snyder’s offensive scheme is charioted by the efforts of Mitchell, who in himself is a 26 ppg. scorer off of fairly-efficient 43/39/85 splits.

Outside of the spectacular Morant, the slow-but effective shot creation of Kyle Anderson, the defensive tenacity of Dillon Brooks (who is going to be making all sorts of defensive gems this series), and Jaren Jackson Jr. occasionally having his moments, Utah has too much firepower to even be kept at bay by the Memphis’ league-wide 16th-ranked defense (in terms of points allowed).

And with a mainstay in the yearly Defensive Player of the Year voting, Rudy Gobert swatting shots and likely erasing the likes of the frontcourt tandem of Jackson, Jonas Valanciunas, and rookie Xavier Tillman during their seven-game series, it’s likely Utah walks into this series as heavy favorites and walks out of it largely unscathed, prepared to duel against their next opponent in the Western Conference Semifinals.

Prediction: Jazz beat Grizzlies 4-1. 

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No. 7 Los Angeles Lakers (42-30) vs. No. 2 Phoenix Suns (51-21)

Devin Booker #1 of the Phoenix Suns scores on a layup over Dennis Schroder #17 of the Los Angeles Lakers as LeBron James #23 and Markieff Morris #88 look on during the second quarter at Staples Center on March 02, 2021, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)

And so, the title defense, and the long quest for Banner No. 18, officially begins on Sunday, May 23, 2021. And yet, they will not get the grace of setting foot on their path to retention with either the West’s No. 1 or No. 2 seeds and instead will have to run the table as the seventh seed in this year’s postseason just to get a sniff of this year’s NBA Finals. And seeing as there has been a total of 11 years since LeBron James has failed to reach the Finals in one postseason, Phoenix will not have the luxury of the easy, typical 2-7 playoff starter of a series. Not by a long shot.

The Lakers have gone through their share of roster deficiencies and health issues as COVID-19 played an additional role in derailing what started out as an effort-less regular season atop the Western throne, which quickly turned into one of “I hope we can make a good trade and/or make the playoffs”, especially when Anthony Davis underwent his own recovery from Achilles Tendonosis. But as they sit in the seventh seed, they have to be salivating at the bit to square off against the Suns’ new trio of Devin Booker, DeAndre Ayton, and 38-year old wizard – not just Point Gawd – Chris Paul who just happens to turn whatever he touches into gold.

I mean, it’s absurd, rather unheard of to fathom just what Chris Paul has done in a matter of three seasons for three different franchises. Being a game (or a quarter, sorry Rockets fans) away from going to the NBA Finals in 2018-19, getting the Oklahoma City Thunder back into the playoff picture as a four-seed in a year they weren’t even supposed to make the playoffs last season, and this year, giving the Suns not only their first postseason berth in 11 years, but to help one of the youngest teams get the second-best record in the NBA in less than a year with them? There are few words to describe his impact and transcendence in this organization.

Phoenix had the season the Lakers wish they could’ve had, pending on health and luck not playing such a significant part on the new construction of the roster. At 51-21, these Suns are seeing the brightest days in the valley, posting the seventh-best defensive efficiency numbers in the league and the 6th best defensive rating in the NBA (110.4 DRtg). Also, Phoenix finished the regular season with the best home record in the league, mainly due in part to their Assist/turnover ratio of 2.15 leading the league, which was the second-highest mark in the last 44 seasons for which turnovers were counted as a statistic.

And as mentioned for the Lakers, they’ve been snakebitten by injuries all season, with none more so than when LeBron James suffered a high-ankle sprain at the tail-end of March. Los Angeles went a whopping 12-15 without LeBron on the year in total, including those losses down the stretch when he turned his ankle, as the Lakers’ offense was in disarray without their facilitating hybrid forward. But with him, they are 31-15 on the year.

But aside from AD and LBJ, the supporting cast of champions deserve recognition. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is a knockdown shooter in the playoffs, Kyle Kuzma’s floor is elevated with AD and Bron’s presence on the court, Andre Drummond, their coveted pickup this season off of the buyout market, has led the league in defensive rebounding percentage, Marc Gasol could be the determining factor in the Lakers winning an NBA title as their most reliable option at the 5 as both a venerable defender and break starter, and Montrezl Harrell will inject energy into the offense and on the glass in the non-Gasol minutes.

And the biggest advantage for the Lakers? Neither AD nor LeBron played in the Suns and Lakers’ three matchups this year.

You have to envision a reality that, in order for Phoenix to survive these Lakers now that they’re 100% healthy, the core of Devin Booker, DeAndre Ayton, and CP3 have to play perfectly as holders of home court, and do the same away from it. One variable there is no controlling (if he is healthy) though…Playoff LeBron is here, and he’s ready to do damage. And respectfully, It’s difficult to envision the Suns having an answer for him other than just Mikal Bridges, as well as DeAndre Ayton on Anthony Davis.

Prediction: Lakers beat Suns 4-2. 

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No. 6 Portland Trail Blazers (42-30) vs. No. 3 Denver Nuggets (47-25)

Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

The Denver Nuggets, who when last met with the opportunity to make a splash in the playoffs successfully reached the Western Conference Finals a season ago, begin their 2020-21 postseason campaign noticeably depleted and handicapped. Jamal Murray has been out of action for nearly two months with a torn ACL and while MVP frontrunner Nikola Jokic has kept Denver’s season intact like super glue, injuries to some important pieces like Will Barton (hamstring strain) and P.J. Dozier (adductor soreness) won’t be in action to start this series off against the healthy and increasingly-confident Portland Trail Blazers.

Thanks to the otherworldly efforts of Jokic year-round, and none more so than in the dates following Murray’s ACL tear, Nikola Jokic hasn’t allowed his Nuggets to falter down the stretch, thus attaining a top-3 seed in the West for the third year in a row.

While their offensive attack may have deteriorated, the continuous emergence of a certain Michael Porter Jr. (who is a 46.5 percent shooter off the catch from deep in only his second year in the pros) has sweetened what was such a souring turn of unfortunate events for the Nuggets as they prepare for what could be another long playoff run.

Denver started the season in a rather pedestrian manner at 17-15, but at that time, they were tied with the Suns for the best record in the NBA after ripping off an insane 30 wins in 40 games. And though you wouldn’t expect it with such a guard-heavy offense, they finished 2020-21 with the lowest number of Pick-And-Roll points per game, since a lot of Mike Malone’s offense primarily revolved around a bunch of split actions and a bunch of savvy passes out of the low block from Nikola Jokic.

And their most trusted five-man combination Malone feels comfortable running their sets the most to start out games involve Facundo Campazzo, Aaron Gordon, MPJ, Jokic, and Austin Rivers (side note: they’ve outscored opponents by an average of 10.8 points with just the trio of Gordon – Porter – Jokic sharing floor time).

This is a team that scores fast out of the gate, and indeed slowing that down will have to be a point of emphasis for Trail Blazers Head Coach Terry Stotts heading into this rematch of the 2019 Western Conference Semifinals that went into a conclusive seven games and saw CJ McCollum and Damian Lillard’s Blazers come out on top.

And speaking of these Blazers, this will be the eighth-straight season that Terry Stotts’ crew will have reached the playoffs – the longest streak of any team in the league. While Damian Lillard’s regular-season minutes per game became a topic of debate, Portland wouldn’t be here had it not been for him taking up a bigger role in lieu of the injury blows to their roster (Jusuf Nurkic and CJ McCollum were out for what felt like two months) as Lillard finished up his 2020-21 regular season with the second-highest usage rate of his career at 31.4% and an averaged 35.8 minutes per game.

Now, in a regular playoff setting with travel and rest (or lack thereof) with a normal playoff schedule and not one that’s inside of a Disney World bubble, we’ll see if that really does affect Lillard heading into this postseason, though this isn’t the time to show fatigue, since this is where the real fun starts.

But looking at Portland’s offense, who in the regular season, (1) scored a league-leading 116.1 points per 100 possessions with the eighth-ranked offense in terms of points per game and, (2) finished the season posting the league’s second-best offensive rating, it’s likely they’ll have the extra-man advantage with all of their core being at 100% for a seven-game series and with Denver being down their true shot-creator in the halfcourt.

The playoffs showcase an entirely different brand of basketball and generally favors the teams who, schematically, are better at creating space with skilled ballhandlers with their own bag of dribble counters that, in turn, create an entire dynamic of offense that work to break down opposing defensive schemes and open the floor for others to get their open looks.

Portland quite literally have three of the best isolation scorers in the world with Damian Lillard (28.8 ppg., 4.2 rpg., 7.5 apg off 45/39/93 splits) CJ McCollum (23.1 ppg., 3.9 rpg., 4.7 apg. off 46/40/81 splits) and Carmelo Anthony off the bench (13.4 ppg., 2.6 rpg., 1.5 apg. off 42/41/89 splits), and present a bunch of mismatches for the Nuggets who will have their hands full in actively switching on ball screens when Lillard decides to get downhill (or pull from 30+ out), McCollum works in the 13-15-foot range, or Anthony operate on the wing against other versatile defenders.

And in a series like this, the game will always come down to a bucket, and while Jokic will pull off some amazing feats in this series, Portland simply has more playmakers with the ball in their hands. Should they not allow Denver to jump on them early during every game and on the other end, make their shots and involve Jokic in the PnR to rack up the fouls, this series will end in the Blazers’ favor.

Prediction: Trail Blazers beat Nuggets 4-2 

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No. 5 Dallas Mavericks (42-30) vs. No. 4 Los Angeles Clippers (47-25)

Photo by Glenn James/NBAE via Getty Images

Rematch! Dallas said run it back, and so we will in round two of this first-round matchup that saw the Clippers win in six games during last year’s playoffs in the Orlando bubble.

And during last year’s thrilling series featuring Luka Doncic, Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, and Kristaps Porzingis, we got one of the most thrilling and bone-chilling moments in postseason history via a game-winning Luka stepback three over Reggie Jackson during an untimely switch at the horn to give Dallas their first win of the series, and while last season’s duel between these two teams that have formed a bit of a rivalry over the course of a year (especially with the Mavericks giving the Clippers their worst loss in franchise history this past December – a 52-point scalping at the Staples Center) this will probably be a highly-competitive and physical series that could very well extend into six or seven games.

For the Clippers, this postseason is absolutely make-or-break, considering the contractual red flag of Kawhi’s possible departure if things don’t go LA’s way in these playoffs. This is a championship-contending team, make no mistake about it, but they are also as good as a first-or-second-round exit.

The Clippers are a team that’s enthralled with so many dynamics to their offense – an offense largely built around the two-way superstardom of both Leonard and Paul George who, since the 2014 season, hasn’t touched the Conference Finals and has been regarded as an “underachiever” in the playoffs. This year, however, with the opportunity to right a lot of wrongs this year as a sportsbook favorite to help his team not only get to the Conference Finals for the first time in franchise history (and break the curse) but advance to the NBA Finals for the first time in his career, George is probably the most explosive, consistent, and mentally prepared for what could be a career-altering two-month period should the other team from Los Angeles finally find success.

This is an elite offense, to put it shortly, as they ranked in the top-10 in offensive rating for the 10th-straight season and led the league in team total 3PT percentage at 41.1 percent – the fourth-highest in league history. The five-man combo of Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Reggie Jackson, Marcus Morris Sr., and Ivica Zubac were the go-home lineups for Head Coach Tyronn Lue, and as an active lineup, outscored opponents by an average of 18.8 points per 100 possessions, the second-best mark in the league this year.

Furthermore, even as a non-aggressive team that may grind for chances inside the restricted zone and get to the line but scored the 28th-most points in the paint this season, they posted the highest Free Throw percentage as a team in NBA history, making an average of nearly 84 percent of their FTAs.

Defensively is where things aren’t as cheeky for the Clippers, however, as they’ve allowed the league’s highest amount of buckets from pick and roll ballhandlers. And they allowed a little under 35 percent of their opponent’s attempts from inside the RZ fall per game, and they’re ranked fourth in the league in that metric.

That’s not the most endearing thing you want to hear while having to defend the Mavericks’ 13th-ranked offense and perhaps the most fluid PnR scorer in the game in Luka Doncic for an entire seven-game series. Get this: Doncic ranked No. 2 in the league in total pick-and-roll ball handler possessions per game, and in terms of how many times he’s scored or assisted running those straight-up sets, he’s ranked 10th among ballhandlers with 300+ possessions.

Dallas finished their 2020-21 season as the eighth-ranked offense in terms of offensive rating, and made sure to beat opponents this year after winning the first quarter and getting a double-digit lead. And as the leader of their offense, Doncic (27.7 ppg., 7.2 rpg., 8.6 apg. off 48/35/73 splits) is looking to advance past these pesky Clippers for the first time in his career.

And complimenting him in this offense would be the likes of Josh Richardson, Dorian Finney-Smith, Maxi Kleber, and Kristaps Porzingis, who all help Doncic beat their opponents by an average of 12.6 points per 100 possessions – that makes this the ninth-best lineup in basketball that’s played 200+ minutes together. And their rotation of guards is just as good. Jalen Brunson is having a career year from downtown, knocking down an insane 48 percent from three out of 25 attempts from the corners, while Tim Hardaway Jr. knocked down a solid 40.9 percent of his catch-and-shoot threes on the year.

There’s a lot of offensive talent on the floor for this series, so do expect high-octane excitement for what’s to be a barnburner of a series. But ultimately, the Mavericks are a relatively-young team who’s 22-year-old leader in Doncic is still entering his prime, even with all of the Triple-Doubles and legendary numbers that he’s put up in his first three years in the league. The Clippers are on a mission this year, and are in win-now mode. This series will probably go the distance with both teams (hopefully) staying healthy throughout, but the Clippers are too balanced and talented to get bounced in the first-round.

Prediction: Clippers beat Mavericks 4-3.