Monday, March 17
NBA Power Rankings: Week 20
Cary Chow and Marc Stein break down Week 20.
The Clippers and Spurs bring winning streaks into this St. Patrick's Day holiday that are nearly identical in terms of both length and the average margin by which they're pounding teams. What ultimately broke the tie: L.A. suddenly sports the league's best record of the calendar year at 27-8 -- which it wrested from Houston, last week's rankings-topper -- and also boasts a 7-4 record against the rest of the West's top five. The Spurs have certainly picked it up in that category, but they're still just 4-9 against the Rockets, Thunder, Blazers and Clips.
Further explanation of this week's order can be found on Stein Line Live. You're also invited to rank the teams yourself here.
| 2013-14 Power Rankings: Week 20 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 | 1 Last Week: 2 | A quick glance at the schedule suggests that the Clips are likely to stretch the league's longest active winning streak, which is decorated by that rather robust average victory margin of 15.4 PPG, from 11 wins in a row to at least 15 ... if they can survive Monday night's visit to the Mile High City. | ||
| 2 | 1 Last Week: 3 | Kawhi Leonard has been back from injury for 10 games. The Spurs are 10-0 in those games, by an average victory margin of 15.3 PPG, after going 8-6 without him. PS -- This is San Antonio's 16th winning streak of the Pop Era spanning at least 10 games ... five more than any other team. | ||
| 3 | 1 Last Week: 4 | Friday's stunning home loss against Denver was Miami's eighth this season against teams with sub-.500 records. The two-time defending champs endured only four such losses last season. If the Pacers end up hanging onto the East's No. 1 seed, that's a decent place to start the autopsy. | ||
| 4 | 3 Last Week: 1 | It was the shortest of stays at No. 1, as feared, in the face of those three rough road assignments. The Rockets, though, can take a measure of solace from the fact that there are just six teams in the whole league with winning records against .500-or-better teams. And they're one of 'em. | ||
| 5 | 1 Last Week: 6 | The silver lining of Indy's recent 7-7 funk: There was no longer any semblance of a roll for Andrew Bynum to theoretically disrupt. So the Bynum Experiment is officially underway ... with those two remaining dates with the Heat looming and the East's top seed still very much up for grabs. | ||
| 6 | 1 Last Week: 5 | The Heat are still in a 2-5 funk after finishing off Houston with a late flourish. LeBron is averaging a mere 20.7 PPG in those seven games after ringing up 61 on Charlotte. Yet you're not hearing much about KD definitively reclaiming the MVP lead ... probably because of OKC's own 5-6 funk. | ||
| 7 |
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Last Week: 7 | MVP candidate, you say? Joakim Noah is bidding to become just the fifth center ever to average more than 12 PPG, 11 RPG and 5 APG for a whole season. The other four, you ask? Try Wilt, Kareem, Russell and Walton. So, yeah, labeling Noah an MVP outsider is sounding less and less outlandish. | ||
| 8 |
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Last Week: 8 | Don't think he'll crack many five-man MVP ballots -- Blake Griffin, Joakim Noah and even Kevin Love all have stronger cases -- but you have to continue to marvel at Marc Gasol's impact. The Grizz went 10-13 without him and started 2014 ranked 25th in defensive efficiency. They're now up to ninth. | ||
| 9 | 1 Last Week: 10 | It's not the wisest habit, obviously, but Sunday's rally in Portland (naturally, on the road) marked the sixth time these Road Warriors won a game after falling behind by 15 or more points. That's twice more than any other team, and predictably followed another befuddling home L (Cleveland). | ||
| 10 | 1 Last Week: 11 | Time for Dirk Nowitzki and Rick Carlisle to take some fresh bows. A reasonable 10-5 finish is suddenly all the Mavs need to record a 50-win season. I thought coming in that 45 wins was their ceiling, but a schedule that seemed so brutal back in November is working in Dallas' favor now. | ||
| 11 | 2 Last Week: 9 | Portland, Phoenix, Chicago, Charlotte ... and Toronto at 31-16 since trading away Rudy Gay. Those are your five nominees for Most Surprising Team of the 2013-14 season. We're now taking tweeted suggestions on how to rank those teams in their own special category at @ESPNSteinLine. | ||
| 12 | 1 Last Week: 13 | John Wall has to be in the mix for Eastern Conference Player of the Month honors for March. The Wiz are 8-3 since the injured Nene went down in late February and Wall, now up to eight 30-point games this season after eight in his first three seasons, is shooting .515 on 3s in March. | ||
| 13 | 2 Last Week: 15 | Those gritty, gutty Suns of Anarchy went 17-16 in the 33 games that Eric Bledsoe missed. And then they atoned for a damaging home loss to Cleveland in Bledsoe's first game back by going to Canada and winning on the same floor where the Raptors had just won 16 of their previous 20. | ||
| 14 | 2 Last Week: 12 | The Blazers, after Sunday's blown-lead crusher at home against Golden State, undeniably have the look of a team more likely to finish sixth in the West than they are to move back up into the top four. They're 12-15 since that 31-9 start and have slipped from first to fourth in offensive efficiency. | ||
| 15 | 1 Last Week: 14 | Further evidence that Jason Kidd might be due an apology or three: Elias says that no team in history has registered a post-December winning percentage of .600 after starting January at 10 or more games below .500 ... until J-Kidd's Nets. They're at 23-10 -- .697 -- since the 10-21 start. | ||
| 16 | 1 Last Week: 17 | Make it eight straight home Ws ... with Al Jefferson averaging 26.6 PPG in March to record the highest-scoring month of his career ... and with at least one scout convinced that Steve Clifford's Bobcats -- who would presumably settle for the No. 6 seed -- are actually fourth-best in the East. | ||
| 17 | 1 Last Week: 16 | They've won nine of 13. They're still No. 9 in the league in terms of average nightly point margin at +3.6. But Kevin Love and Co. seem to be getting no closer to halting that nine-season playoff drought, thanks to the injuries and that fatal 3-12 record in games decided by four points or less. | ||
| 18 |
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Last Week: 18 | Hard to picture a warm and fuzzy relationship between the sports fans of Indianapolis and Denver after the Peyton Manning saga. But Pacer People have to love the Nuggets right now after they went to Miami, with a worst-in-the-West record of 6-13 since Feb. 1, and stunned the Heat. | ||
| 19 | 1 Last Week: 20 | Talk about synergy. The Knicks, without warning, have followed up an 0-7 skid by winning six games in a row, each by a margin of at least 10 points. Gotta rewind all the way to November 1969 -- when a gangly forward named Phil Jackson was on the team -- for the previous time that happened. | ||
| 20 | 4 Last Week: 24 | It's not exactly Kyle Korver-esque, but the Hawks' three-game winning streak, after a 1-14 nosedive, has provided some much-needed playoff insulation now that the Knicks are inexplicably hot. Atlanta is trying, despite all of those injuries, to extend its playoff streak to seven straight seasons. | ||
| 21 |
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Last Week: 21 | The Cavs were dreading this portion of the schedule plenty already with home games looming against Miami, OKC and Houston after a rough road trifecta. Potentially losing Kyrie Irving obviously snuffs out any glee lingering from those unexpected triumphs at Phoenix and Golden State. | ||
| 22 | 3 Last Week: 19 | Anthony Davis was averaging 30.8 PPG over five games before his 40-point, 21-rebound eruption. The Bourbon Street vibe, though, isn't exactly bubbly with the Pels mired in that dreaded no-man's land where they likely can't make the playoffs or keep their top-five protected lottery pick. | ||
| 23 | 1 Last Week: 22 | Lots of mysteries in Minneapolis. Boogie Cousins was rested because his coach said he "needs a night off." Was it really to give Derrick Williams center stage against his old team? To spare DMC from a suspension-triggering T? Also: How did the Kings lose by a mere two points without him? | ||
| 24 | 1 Last Week: 25 | Gonna go out on a limb and nominate Saturday night as the low point of the Pistons' woeful season. As if an Andre Drummond neck injury wasn't scary enough, Detroit couldn't hold a 25-point lead over visiting Indiana. NBA teams were a combined 1-190 this season when trailing by 25 or more points. | ||
| 25 | 2 Last Week: 23 | Kobe and Nash were ruled out for the rest of the season. Phil was finally hired away by another franchise after casting a three-season shadow over Lakerland. And L.A., amid all that, was the first team formally eliminated from the 2014 playoffs. Even by Lakers standards, that's some week. | ||
| 26 |
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Last Week: 26 | Turns out that the committee (of one), due to some late-breaking revisions to our travel schedule, will not be spending St. Patrick's Day in the company of Rajon Rondo and the Boston Celtics as originally planned. Feels like we're missing out even with the Celts in their current (tanking) state. | ||
| 27 |
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Last Week: 27 | Any notion Trey Burke could mount a late assault on the rookie of the year trophy is being drowned out by Utah's 3-12 swoon since the All-Star break. Which is all too reminiscent of the 1-11 start endured by the Jazz while their prized rookie was still out recovering from finger surgery. | ||
| 28 |
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Last Week: 28 | Among the reasons why I refuse to get all worked up about Philly's horrific second half and whether that should affect Michael Carter-Williams' rookie of the year campaign: Victor Oladipo's Magic have racked up exactly one win since the All-Star break against teams other than Philly. One. | ||
| 29 |
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Last Week: 29 | Brandon Knight averaged 21.7 PPG/6.4 APG in February and the offense-shy Bucks recently cracked 100 points in six straight games. These seemingly random facts are intentionally presented without further context just to prove to the world we can say something nice about Milwaukee. | ||
| 30 |
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Last Week: 30 | Can the Sixers possibly win one of their next seven games to avoid the longest losing streak in league history? Can the Sixers win any of these last 16 games? Can Nerlens Noel convince the Sixers to let him play just one game this season? Can I dare assume anyone still reads this far down? | ||
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