NBA: Power ranking West playoff teams ahead of the post-season

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NBA Portland Trail Blazers Damian Lillard (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) /

In the top-heavy NBA Western Conference, which teams will have the edge over the others and which will halt early with a first-round exit?

With the NBA Playoffs just around the corner, the Western Conference has already locked in all eight of its teams for the post-season. The seeding of these teams, however, is still up in the air as the 3rd seeded Houston Rockets and 8th seeded Oklahoma City Thunder are only five games apart.

It’s clear to see that the race for the higher end is neck and neck as it has been for the past few years in the top-heavy West. There are a lot of familiar sights in this year’s playoffs and a few surprises appearances along with it. So with only a week or so left in the season who are the best and worst teams heading into April and May basketball?

Here is a Western Conference playoff power ranking.

8. Portland Trail Blazers

The Portland Trail Blazers are the perfect example of a regular season team. The Blazers have performed incredibly each year throughout the season, but they can never seem to get it done when it matters most.

Portland went one win short of 50 last season and got swept by the 6th seed New Orleans Pelicans in the first round. The duo of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum is great and it works better than a lot of backcourt duos do in this league, but time and time again they’ve shown that they can’t seem to get the job done come playoff time.

Things only get worse for Portland as they’ve just recently lost their starting center in Jusuf Nurkic to a gruesome leg injury. It doesn’t look good for the Blazers and They weren’t a playoff presence to really begin with. It’ll be hard for this team to really make an impact, but with their well-rounded record maybe Lillard can make something happen if put up against the right team.