NBA Power Rankings: Jimmy Butler injury changes playoff race

The regular season came back with a roar this week, shaking the Western Conference playoff race again with another injury. Our NBA power rankings break it down.

It’s the final stretch of the season for the NBA, with teams fully embracing their tank offensive for a top-five pick or gearing up for an exciting run at the postseason. The bottom-third of the league seems prepared to tank, while the remaining 20 teams will try to scrap together as many wins as they can to secure a postseason berth.

One of the teams that felt good about their postseason chances are the Minnesota Timberwolves. After acquiring Jimmy Butler, Jeff Teague, Taj Gibson, and Jamal Crawford in the offseason, they seemed prime to make a playoff run that wouldn’t stop in the first round. However, a meniscus injury to Jimmy Butler leaves them without one of their franchise players, and now there is the potential that things could go off the rails over the final twenty games of the season.

While they haven’t slid out of the top-10 in the power rankings, it remains to be seen where they’ll land in the standings once the regular season is a wrap.

The Suns were blown out in their first game of the week, losing to the Clippers 128-117, in a game that wasn’t as close as the final score. The Clippers jumped out to a 19-0 lead, and had a 79-50 lead going into halftime. Josh Jackson had the first Suns points, and finished with 19 in the game. “Inexcusable,” Suns interim coach Jay Triano said. “We knew that they’re an iso (isolate) team and they were going to put it down and drive it right at us and they did and we couldn’t keep anyone in front of us.”

Troy Daniels cost the Suns the game against the Trail Blazers, failing to inbounds the ball with 20 seconds left in the game, giving Damian Lillard a chance to break a 104-all tie with less than a second remaining. The Suns had stunned the Trail Blazers for the first 40 minutes of the game, running out to a 15-point lead with eight minutes left, only to see that lead collapse against Lillard and McCollum.