2. Jimmy Butler (Miami Heat)
Playoff Jimmy, Himmy Butler, Jimmy Buckets. Whatever moniker you use, Jimmy Butler has lived up to it these playoffs in leading the 8-seed Miami Heat to the Eastern Conference Finals.
Butler had an All-NBA regular season (2nd team) but has stepped his game up even further from there in the playoffs. So far in the playoffs, Butler is averaging 31.1 points, 6.6 rebounds, 5.4 assists, and 1.7 steals per game. He is also shooting 52.7% from the field and 36.1% from deep.
Even while slowed in the conference semis by an ankle injury (which caused him to miss Game 2), Butler still averaged 24.6/7.2/6.0 in the series while leading the Heat to become just the second-ever 8-seed to advance to the conference finals.
Prior to the injury, Butler was absurd in the Bucks series, averaging 37.6 points per game in the series on 59.7% shooting (44.4% from three). That included a 56-point performance in Game 4 where he willed the Heat to victory, plus three other 30-point performances as the Heat took down the 1-seed in 5 games.
In the regular season, Butler put up 22.9 points, 5.9 rebounds, and 5.3 assists per game on an arguable career-best season efficiency-wise (53.9% FG, 35% 3P, 85% FT)
1. Nikola Jokic (Denver Nuggets)
The MVP runner-up (and back-to-back winner in 2021 and 2022) is playing some of the best basketball of his career right now. The Nuggets’ 28-year-old superstar is dominating the playoffs through two rounds, averaging 30.7 points, 12.8 rebounds, and 9.7 assists per game. He also already has five playoff Triple-Doubles this year (no one else has more than one).
He’s also doing all this while shooting 54.9% from the field, 47.5% from deep, and 78.7% from the line. Jokic has a 50-point game, plus has scored 30 or more five times in the playoffs so far.
In the Western Conference semis with the Nuggets facing a fierce test from the KD and Booker-led Suns, Jokic put up 34.5 points, 13.2 rebounds, and 10.3 assists per game on 59.4% shooting from the field and 44.4% shooting from deep.
This run comes on the heels of a regular season in which the Joker averaged 24.5 points, 11.8 rebounds, and 9.8 assists on 63.2%/38.3%/82.2% splits. As previously mentioned, Jokic finished as the MVP runner-up and was second-team All-NBA (due to playing the same position as Joel Embiid).
Jokic was already one of the best players in the world, but he has seemed to elevate his game even further through Denver’s first 11 playoff games.