Monday, March 31
Week:
Team:
Ken Jeong is on NBA Power Rankings
The Spurs, furthermore, have a three-game lead on Oklahoma City in the race for the West's No. 1 seed heading into the longtime rivals' showdown Thursday in OKC, with both of these teams down to their final nine regular-season games. As such, San Antonio is rated at a whopping 93.3 percent, according to the Hollinger Playoff Odds, to win the conference and hold home-court advantage throughout the playoffs.
Further explanation behind this week's order can be found on Stein Line Live. You're also invited to rank the teams here yourself.
| 2013-14 Power Rankings: Week 22 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 |
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Last Week: 1 | The typical Spurs response is to downplay playoff seeding, but I assure you Pop most definitely wants that No. 1 seed this time to ensure San Antonio dodges OKC and its hard-to-handle athleticism until the West finals. The Thunder are 3-0 in the season series entering Thursday's final duel. | ||
| 2 | 1 Last Week: 3 | If the Thunder can manage a 7-2 finish, they'll have improved their winning percentage for a sixth consecutive season, tying Minnesota's NBA-record streak from 1992-93 through 1997-98. Those Wolves, though, topped out at .549 during that span. KD & Co. have to better last season's .732. | ||
| 3 | 1 Last Week: 2 | Even accounting for Blake Griffin's back, Glen Davis' blowup with Doc Rivers and a loss in New Orleans that preceded impressive road wins in Dallas and Houston, we don't get the angst in the air about this team when the Clips are in the midst of a 15-2 run and close to getting J.J. Redick back. | ||
| 4 | 1 Last Week: 5 | The Heat, at a mere 7-8 since LeBron's 61-point eruption against Charlotte, were down to a 16 percent shot to secure the East's No. 1 seed, according to numberFire's projections, after losing that showdown in Indy ... only for the fading Pacers to graciously keep giving the champs more life. | ||
| 5 | 1 Last Week: 4 | As hard as the Rockets tried to find a palatable Omer Asik trade, going back to December, they were always torn about the idea. And now the Rockets have to be glad Asik bidders were turned off by Houston's high demands because Dwight Howard is still out. So they need their insurance policy. | ||
| 6 |
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Last Week: 6 | The Pacers, for all their offensive shortcomings, were held to fewer than 80 points only once in the season's first 69 games. Yet it's happened four times in the past five games, with Indy scoring a mere 84 points against Miami as the lone exception. The crisis of confidence, in other words, continues. | ||
| 7 |
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Last Week: 7 | No matter how much No One Wants To Play These Guys pub the Grizzlies get, Memphis would love to work its way up to sixth in the West to avoid the Spurs and Thunder in Round 1, against whom the Griz are 1-6 this season. But they just dropped two straight for the first time since early February. | ||
| 8 |
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Last Week: 8 | That five-day break didn't exactly rejuvenate the Dubs, did it? Not with controversy engulfing Mark Jackson, Andrew Bogut taking a painful knee to the groin from Marc Gasol and Golden State dropping to a potentially fatal 9-6 at home against the East with Sunday's loss to the Knicks. | ||
| 9 | 4 Last Week: 13 | Dirk Nowitzki said it Saturday after the Mavs nearly threw away yet another game on an agonizingly long homestand already filled with giveaways: "I mean, we lose leads. That's what we do." Then came a pick-me-up Sunday with the Warriors, Suns and Griz all losing. That wild, wacky West. | ||
| 10 |
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Last Week: 10 | The Suns' longest win streak since the spring of 2010 (six straight wins fueled by 22.0 PPG on 58.4 percent shooting from Goran Dragic) came to a crashing halt in L.A. thanks to a historic Chris Kaman eruption (see this tweet). A real crusher in terms of the Desert Cinderellas' playoff dreams. | ||
| 11 | 2 Last Week: 9 | Joakim Noah Dime Watch: JoNo has six games this season with 10 or more assists, all since Feb. 6, to emerge as the most pass-happy center since committee-of-one favorite Vlade Divac recorded nine such games in 2003-04. The Bulls, meanwhile, are up to 27-14 since trading away Luol Deng. | ||
| 12 |
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Last Week: 12 | The Raps have tied their franchise single-season record for road victories (20), just clinched the club's first trip to the postseason since 2008 and continue to cling to the East's No. 3 seed ... even after Kyle Lowry's career-best string of eight consecutive 20-point games was finally snapped. | ||
| 13 | 2 Last Week: 15 | Lookie here. After 10 consecutive losses to teams that entered the game with a winning percentage of .600 or better, Portland uncorked surprising weekend wins over Chicago (road) and Memphis (home) and, more importantly, is 3-0 since getting LaMarcus Aldridge back in the lineup. | ||
| 14 | 3 Last Week: 11 | Most of their success has been at home, true, but the small-balling Nets don't just sport the East's best record (29-12) since Jan. 1. They're also 17-12 against the West and rank as the East's third-best team against .500-or-better foes at 17-19, trailing only Miami (22-12) and Indiana (20-15). | ||
| 15 | 1 Last Week: 14 | The Wiz have steadied themselves to the point they likely can't finish lower than No. 6 in the East. Better yet: Washington will soon join Toronto on the list of teams officially playoff-bound, leaving Minnesota (10 seasons in a row) and Sacramento (eight) with the two longest playoff droughts. | ||
| 16 |
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Last Week: 16 | The Bobcats' next win will clinch the second-highest win total in the club's decade-long history. Charlotte won 35 games in 2008-09, 44 in 2009-10 ... and went a combined 28-120 over the past two seasons before Steve Clifford and Al Jefferson showed up to supply much-needed street cred. | ||
| 17 |
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Last Week: 17 | Maybe this really was meant to be with the new team president and the way these Knicks won't go away in the race for No. 8 in the East. Since Phil Jackson left 'em in 1978, only one player in franchise history has appeared in more games than Jackson's 732. A chap named Patrick Ewing. | ||
| 18 | 4 Last Week: 22 | At what point do we just change the name to the Nine Lives Conference? The Cavs are still alive for a playoff berth in the East thanks to a scrappy 4-4 run without Kyrie Irving ... and with just one .500-or-better team left on the schedule after 11 such teams in March. And Kyrie might even be back soon. | ||
| 19 |
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Last Week: 19 | The Wolves have a club-record 12 wins this season by 20 points or more ... after just nine over the previous four seasons. But maybe this team really is that rare outfit whose propensity for routs is misleading. How meaningful is it, after all, to ring up 143 points against this group of Lakers? | ||
| 20 | 1 Last Week: 21 | If you say you had the Pels beating the Clips with Anthony Morrow scoring 27 points -- and Chris Paul scoring two in a return to New Orleans -- then I don't believe you. Fingers crossed, in the interim, that Anthony Davis can shake off his latest setback (listed as day-to-day with an ankle issue). | ||
| 21 | 3 Last Week: 18 | Kenneth Faried just became the first Nugget since Antonio McDyess in 1999 to average at least 19.3 PPG and 9.9 RPG for the month of March. That's the good news. The bad news: Denver's slide since that 24-23 start, which will end a run of 10 straight playoff appearances, has reached 8-18. | ||
| 22 | 2 Last Week: 20 | It appears to have dawned on the Hawks that the only way they're getting a lottery pick in June, now that Brooklyn has boomeranged so nicely, is missing the playoffs themselves. At 7-20 since Feb. 1, Atlanta has seen its 6.5-game lead on #eventheseknicks from March 4 sliced to 1.5. | ||
| 23 | 1 Last Week: 24 | Another wild week even by Lakers standards. When they weren't playing playoff spoilers against the Knicks and Suns, the Lakers were surrendering a whopping 143 points to a Minnesota team with nothing to play for and getting swept by the Bucks. Opponents rang up 130 points five times in March. | ||
| 24 | 1 Last Week: 23 | Keeping the Kings in Cali makes Vivek Ranadive an undeniably worthy nominee for Sports Exec of the Year. But taking 'em back to the West elite is going to be even tougher than holding off the Seattle threat given all the changes so far and the negligible difference it's made in the standings. | ||
| 25 |
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Last Week: 25 | I remain convinced that the game will get much easier for Gordon Hayward when he's surrounded by better help. In the interim: Hayward is one of just five players this season -- along with KD, LeBron, Westbrook and MCW -- averaging 15+ PPG, 5+ RPG and 5+ APG while being smothered. | ||
| 26 | 2 Last Week: 28 | They could still use a road win in 2014 against someone -- anyone -- besides Philly. But Orlando did end one notable drought last week with that stunning home W over Portland. The Blazers are the first team with a winning record to fall in the Magic Kingdom since Indy back on Feb. 9. | ||
| 27 |
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Last Week: 27 | Who says the Celts aren't playoff relevant? Boston gave us the two worst playoff teams, winning percentage-wise, of the past quarter-century: .427 in 1994-95 and .439 in 2003-04. The next 18 days will tell us whether the Hawks, Knicks or Cavs snag No. 8 with an even lower success rate. | ||
| 28 | 1 Last Week: 29 | Nine games left. Nine more chances to carve out back-to-back wins and avoid joining the 1986-87 Clippers and 2004-05 Hawks on the list of teams to play out a full 82-game season without two wins in a row. Nine games left for the Bucks and none against the Lakers, who they've beaten twice. | ||
| 29 | 1 Last Week: 30 | To properly honor Vitas Gerulaitis, my tweet should have read: "And let that be a lesson to you all. Nobody beats the Philadelphia 76ers 27 times in a row." And to be as honest as possible, I admit joining the chorus of wise guys calling them the Philadelphia 26ers until they finally won one. | ||
| 30 | 4 Last Week: 26 | The Pistons are 4-17 since the All-Star break. The Pistons are 5-18 under interim coach John Loyer. The Pistons just lost by 25 points in Philly. The Pistons will almost certainly be sending a lottery pick to Charlotte in 2015 even if they get to keep their 2014 lottery pick, as it now appears. | ||
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