NBA Power Rankings Week 20: What history will Milwaukee Bucks make?

Last week: Beat Atlanta 129-112, lost at Cleveland 108-94, beat New York 115-106

This week: Sunday at Clippers, Tuesday at Lakers, Thursday at Sacramento, Saturday at Golden State

If ever there was a worse time for the NBA’s most enigmatic road team to go to California for four straight games, it’s hard to come up with one. The Philadelphia 76ers are an NBA-best 28-2 at home and just 9-21 on the road and they will journey west this week without Ben Simmons or Joel Embiid.

Simmons will be out for at least two weeks with an impingement in his lower back and Embiid went down with a sprained left shoulder in Wednesday’s loss at Cleveland. That takes both of the team’s current All-Stars out of the equation in a situation where they’ve been just a .300 team with one or both of them available.

Tobias Harris stepped up with a strong game in Thursday’s win over the Knicks with 34 points, seven rebounds and seven assists and for the week put up 23.3 points, 5.7 boards, 4.7 dimes, 1.7 steals and 1.0 blocks in 35.7 minutes per game. Harris shot 51.9 percent overall in the three games and was 8-for-16 from 3-point land.

Last week: Lost to Phoenix 131-111, lost to Boston 114-103, beat Washington 129-119

This week: Monday at Cleveland, Wednesday at New York, Friday at Boston, Saturday at Detroit

With a win over the Wizards Friday night, the Utah Jazz completed a doughnut-like six-game homestand with a win over the Heat to start it and the win over the Wiz to end it. It was the nothing in the middle that hurt, as took four straight losses — including a 20-point pounding from the lowly Suns — between the two victories.

The Jazz will head East for a four-game road trip this week, including a return engagement in Boston against a Celtics team that handled them at home by 11 points on Wednesday, but games at Cleveland, New York and Detroit will — theoretically at least — give Utah a chance to get back on track.

Donovan Mitchell lit up the scoreboard all week last week, averaging 35.0 points, 5.7 rebounds and 4.0 assists in three games, shooting 48.6 percent overall and hitting 48.0 percent on 8.3 3-point attempts per game. In the process, he ran his streak of consecutive games with at least 30 points to a career-high four, including dropping 38 in the loss to the Suns.