NBA Risers and Fallers: Magic surge, Bucks tumble

Hold onto your seats, folks, the NBA’s sprint to the finish line is set for more twists and turns than when the Raptors’ Jordan Nwora was recently crossed up by the Pelicans’ Brandon Ingram.

While the bottom-of-the-barrel teams jockey for more ping-pong balls in the lottery and the top of each conference looks increasingly secure in the hands of Boston and Denver, there’s plenty happening all around them to make this a particularly intense finish to the regular season.

A Play-In Tournament featuring Luka Doncic, Kevin Durant, LeBron James and Steph Curry? That’s just one of the possibilities this NBA season’s stretch run presents. With plenty to play for over the final month, here are three teams that are peaking at the right time and three others stumbling towards the finish:

RISER: DALLAS MAVERICKS

While Nikola Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander try to lead their respective teams to the best record in the West and possibly the MVP award because of it, Doncic is doing everything in his power to elevate the Mavericks and keep himself in the MVP discussion.

Averaging nearly a 35-point triple-double over the past month, Doncic has helped Dallas win 13 of its last 18 games. Aiding matters, the Mavs have the eighth easiest remaining schedule, per Tankathon, with eight games against sub-.500 teams. On the season, Dallas is 21-5 against sub-.500 teams and will look to carry that success to a 50-plus win season and out of the Play-In Tournament picture.

Entering play on Thursday, Dallas is a half-game behind Sacramento for sixth and 1.5 games behind New Orleans for fifth. Both those teams face harder schedules the rest of the way, making a guaranteed playoff spot look very much in play.

FALLER: PHOENIX SUNS

Of the 17 games remaining on Phoenix’s schedule, only four will be against sub-.500 teams. Making matters more difficult, all 10 games to finish the season are against plus-.500 teams. That math leaves the Suns with the second toughest remaining schedule.

This is a team that has struggled for momentum all season due to injury, is a middling 5-5 in its last 10 games, and, perhaps most significantly, has been the league’s worst fourth-quarter team with a minus-14.3 net rating. For all the hype of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal as an elite trio, the lack of a true table setter has left the offence looking stagnant and disorganized in winning time.

Standing seventh in the West, Phoenix is against the odds to avoid the Play-In.

RISER: NEW ORLEANS PELICANS

A team no one’s talking about just keeps getting it done. The Pelicans have won 13 of 18 and have proven to be even better on the road (21-13) than at home (18-13).

That’s usually made possible with great defence, and the Pelicans have the second-best defence in the league over the past month-and-a-half, per Cleaning the Glass. Offensively, Zion Williamson has increasingly been handling the ball with plenty of spacing around him while the long overdue resurgence of Trey Murphy has elevated this team to another level. New Orleans is 7-0 when Murphy scores at least 20 points this season and 20-5 when he’s hit that mark in his career.

After being absent for the first 21 games of the season due to recovery from surgery to repair a torn meniscus in left knee, Murphy averaged just 12.7 points and 3.7 rebounds along with a pedestrian – by his standards – 36.1-per-cent hit rate from three heading into the all-star break. In nine games since the break, Murphy has put up 19.4 points to go along with 6.0 rebounds while shooting 40.2 per cent on 10.8 three-point attempts per game.

The Pelicans are as deep as any team in the West and can beat opponents in a variety of ways, but as long as Williamson, Brandon Ingram, and CJ McCollum are healthy, the X-Factor in winning at the highest level is Murphy. Currently fifth in the West, the Pelicans will be hoping to solidify their guaranteed playoff spot and, at 2.5 games behind, perhaps even give the Los Angeles Clippers a battle for home court in the first round.

FALLER: MILWAUKEE BUCKS

It’s hard to think of many teams this high in the standings that have had as tumultuous a path as this Bucks squad. Whether it be Giannis Antetokounmpo publicly demanding that everyone including the equipment manager find a way to be better or coach Adrian Griffin getting fired midway through his first season or even Damian Lillard still getting acclimated to new surroundings, it’s been anything but smooth sailing in Milwaukee.

Milwaukee won six straight coming out of the all-star break, but four of those wins came against Charlotte (17-49), twice, Chicago (32-34), and a Philadelphia team that has struggled to keep its head above water in the absence of Joel Embiid (7-12). With a more stern test on a recent West coast trip, the Bucks lost three of four, including two by over 30 points (Golden State and Sacramento). 

Cleveland is just a half-game behind Milwaukee for the second seed, and the matchups could get dangerous. The Indiana Pacers have proven a matchup problem with a 4-1 record against the Bucks during the regular season (one extra game because of the In-Season Tournament) while the other possibilities include a Sixers team that could have Embiid back for the playoffs or the reigning East champion Miami Heat, who took Milwaukee out in the first round a year ago.

Faced with the fourth-most difficult schedule down the stretch and just five games remaining against sub-.500 teams, the Bucks face a stiff test.

RISER: ORLANDO MAGIC

Orlando has one of the more traditional record splits in the league. It is very good at home with a 22-9 record but mediocre on the road to the tune of a 16-19 mark. The Magic are also 23-6 against sub-.500 teams but 15-22 against plus-.500 teams.

So, given all that, what suggests the Magic are set to finish the season strong? For starters, the team is playing some very good basketball and that has been reflected in a 14-5 record over the past 19 games. Paolo Banchero has gone from strength to strength over the course of the season and a top-five defence has provided plenty for a team that has generally struggled shooting the basketball.

Nine of its final 15 games are at home, including a seven-game homestand. Currently a half-game behind the New York Knicks for the fourth seed in the East, the Magic will be dreaming of home-court advantage.

FALLER: MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES

It’s not so much that Minnesota will go into freefall in the absence of Karl-Anthony Towns. Rather, the race between the top three in the West is so tight that Towns' injury will make it too difficult to stay in contention for the top two seeds, a position the Wolves occupied for most of this season. Entering Thursday night’s action, the Wolves are a full game behind the Nuggets and a half-game behind the Thunder.

A brutal stretch awaits over the rest of March with Minnesota slated to face Denver twice, Cleveland, and Golden State, while the Jazz twice in Utah is no cakewalk either with a healthy 19-13 home record.

There may be a silver lining to finishing third or even fourth, though. The top two seeds are currently in line to possibly play the Suns, Mavs, Lakers, or Warriors, in which case a matchup with the Pelicans or Kings may be preferred.

We're about to see just how much of a burden Anthony Edwards can carry, and if his recent heroics against Indiana are anything to go by, it’s going to be a fun time even if not a long time in the post-season.