Top Seeds Stumble as Conference Finals Open With a Shock

The conference finals are supposed to separate the heavyweights from the survivors, but both top seeds have walked into the kind of mess nobody sketches on the whiteboard. Early momentum matters this time of year, and when the favorite starts wobbling, every shift suddenly feels like a referendum on the whole bracket. The upset chatter is already loud, and the next game will tell us whether this is a bad night or the start of a very expensive problem.