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BOB'S CORNER: The NBA has progressed through to the best-of-7 Conference Finals and our man on the spot, Bob Craven, has the latest as the Denver Nuggets, LA Lakers in the West, Boston Celtics and Miami Heat in the East prepare to go to war to determine who will battle out the Final.

THE second round of the NBA playoffs is now complete and we head into the Conference Finals.  We also had some odd happenings to get to this point - the Miami Heat in the East and the LA Lakers in the West both made it through the preliminary play-in rounds to make it to the Finals.

Eastern Conference Semifinals
No. 8 seed Miami Heat defeated the No. 5 seed NY Knicks 4-2, and the No. 2 seed Boston Celtics defeated the No. 3 seed Philadelphia 76ers 4-3.

For Miami, Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo were big, all series long, as they became just the second No. 8 seed to reach the conference finals, joining the Knicks who pulled it off in 1999. 

Meanwhile, in the deciding Game 7 in Boston, the Celtics blew up the Sixers, winning by 24 points behind the 51-points of Jayson Tatum. 

The game was still a jump ball at half time, but the Celtics ran away from the Sixers in the third quarter with a 28-3 run, putting the game on ice.

The NBA's leading scorer and newly-crowned MVP this past regular season, Joel Embiid, was rarely a factor. He'd missed the last game of the previous series and the first game of this series with injuries, but even back in the lineup and playing reasonably well, the Sixers still lost in his return in Game 2.

Embiid and his entire team played horribly in the second half of Game 7 and ended up shooting only 37 per cent from the field.

Western Conference Semifinals
No. 1 seed Denver Nuggets defeated the No. 4 seed Phoenix Suns 4-2.  The Suns truly disappointed here as many felt with the late-season addition off All-Star Kevin Durant, they could and would make a push to take the title. 

Still, each team held serve on their home court until Game 6 in Phoenix and with Denver in the lead 3-2.  But in Game 5 in Denver, Phoenix started to look like they were running out of gas, losing by double digits and not looking good in the process.

For the Nuggets, Jamal Murray led the way early in the series, but Nikola Jokic picked it up and proved unstoppable.  He had triple-doubles in three of the last four games in the series, and in Game 4, the one game in that stretch where he didn't get the triple double, he went off for 53 points and added 11 assists. 

In clinching the series in Phoenix in Game 6, Denver was up by 30 points at the half, with the home team booed mercilessly off the floor at the intermission, and they coasted home to the win by 25.

Conference finals are this week, with Denver and LA meeting in Game 1 Tuesday in Denver in the West, and Boston meeting Miami in Boston in the East on Wednesday.