I don’t know about you, but I sure don’t feel like the team that leads the Western Conference Finals by a 3-2 margin is the better team right now. And I’ll tell you how that’s not an emotional hot-take.
Yes, the Phoenix Suns are better on paper than a Kawhi-less Los Angeles Clippers team, but that Kawhi-less Clippers team beat the Jazz, has won two of the last three games against the Suns and has outscored the Suns by 17 points overall in the five games (3.4 per game margin). Their remaining star, Paul George, just made 75% of his shots in Game 5, including a third-to-fourth quarter stretch that was mind bogglingly good.