Monday, April 7
Pacers' Free Fall Continues
Cary Chow and Marc Stein break down Week 23 of the NBA Power Rankings.
With only one more week of rankings to go before the playoffs begin, San Antonio looks like a lock to finish the regular season atop our power poll barring something zany in the final week-plus of the regular season. The big question now is whether the Indiana Pacers, who have earned the No. 1 ranking from the committee (of one) on a league-leading nine Mondays this season, will manage to finish in the top 10 given the depths of their ongoing slide.
Further explanation behind this week's order can be found on Stein Line Live. You're also invited to rank the teams yourself.
| 2013-14 Power Rankings: Week 23 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 |
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Last Week: 1 | You can pardon last week's 3-1 mark given the quality of opponents. Even the Spurs, folks, weren't going to finish the season on a 26-game win streak. You can also make it four 60-win seasons for Gregg Popovich, one shy of Phil Jackson's five with the Bulls and Pat Riley's five with the Lakers. | ||
| 2 |
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Last Week: 2 | The Thunder might sport the strongest résumé of any team ever stuck in the No. 2 spot in these rankings. They've now snapped Spurs win streaks spanning 11 and 19 games and are just the third team ever to post a 4-0 season sweep over a 60-win club, joining the 1972-73 Celts and 1988-89 Knicks. | ||
| 3 |
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Last Week: 3 | The Clippers are quietly bracing for a No. 3 finish in the West that will almost certainly force them to beat OKC in Round 2 without home-court advantage. Let's see what happens Wednesday, when the Clips host Kevin Durant & Co. in ESPN's late game, before writing anything in stone. | ||
| 4 |
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Last Week: 4 | They have lost five games by one point, which is the third-highest total ever for a defending champ. And they've blown eight double-digit leads after blowing just two such games last season. The Heat, in other words, might not be as vulnerable as it seems -- if D-Wade holds up in the playoffs. | ||
| 5 |
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Last Week: 5 | How valuable will Sunday's crazy comeback prove to be? Scoring 16 of the final 19 points to avoid a costly home loss to Denver kept the Rockets in the driver's seat for the No. 4 seed. Can't ask for more when you're also trying to get Dwight Howard and Patrick Beverley healed for the playoffs. | ||
| 6 | 1 Last Week: 7 | In the wake of the latest controversy involving an assistant coach, Mark Jackson came out strongly Sunday to insist "there is absolutely no friction" between the coach and his bosses. I'll continue to argue that the backing Jackson keeps getting from his players is the envy of coaches all over the league. | ||
| 7 | 2 Last Week: 9 | Team Go Figure has reeled off five straight road wins for the first time since March of its championship season in 2010-11. This comes fresh off an agonizingly long 4-4 homestand that featured what Dirk Nowitzki referred to as "four gut punches." Wild and wacky don't do justice to the West. | ||
| 8 | 2 Last Week: 10 | It's not the race that matters most to them, obviously, but keeping the Suns in the hunt for one of the last two playoff spots in the nutso West has me leaning -- still -- toward Jeff Hornacek over Gregg Popovich (and all the rest) in yet another way-too-deep Coach of the Year race. | ||
| 9 | 2 Last Week: 7 | I'm as guilty as anyone of popularizing the idea that the Griz are a playoff lock, but the supposed Team Everyone Wants To Avoid in Round 1 woke up on the penultimate Power Rankings Monday of the season still stuck at No. 9 in the conference. Even after 11 straight wins at home. | ||
| 10 | 4 Last Week: 6 | To get pounded the way the Pacers did at home by a beat-up Hawks team has to be the most worrisome outing yet in this second-half swoon that's giving lower East seeds more and more unexpected hope. Indy has never shown such an alarming lack of fight, with Friday's trip to Miami looming. | ||
| 11 |
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Last Week: 11 | Fun fact for Bulls fans to chew on while waiting to see whether Chicago manages to snag the East's No. 3 seed: Joakim Noah is poised to become the first center to lead his team in assists since David Robinson in 1993-94, which was Year 1 covering the NBA for the committee (of one). | ||
| 12 | 1 Last Week: 13 | The Blazers have lost their last six trips to the first round, but that's a skid to worry about in 10 days. They've nursed LaMarcus Aldridge back to decent health, halted their recent slide and made it to 50 wins with four games to spare. All of which they would have gladly taken if offered back on Halloween. | ||
| 13 | 1 Last Week: 12 | Sentences we never thought we'd be writing about the Raptors in April: Dwane Casey & Co. need a 3-2 finish to secure the best single-season win total in franchise history. They really should have won 50 games for the first time if not for that blasted 1-6 record in overtime. | ||
| 14 |
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Last Week: 14 | The Nets are the first team since Sacramento way back in 1985-86 to make the playoffs despite sitting 10+ games below. 500 on Dec. 31. Hard to believe when you remember Shaun Livingston and Mason Plumlee became starters thanks to all the time missed by Brook Lopez, Andrei Kirilenko and Kevin Garnett. | ||
| 15 | 1 Last Week: 16 | The Bobcats are back in the playoffs for the first time since 2010 and over .500 for the first time since they began the season at 5-4. This gives Steve Clifford real hope of joining Jeff Hornacek, Dave Joerger and Jason Kidd on this season's list of first-time coaches with winning records. | ||
| 16 | 1 Last Week: 15 | Life is generally good in the nation's capital. Nene is inching closer to a return, and Washington's worst-case scenario -- landing seventh in the East to draw Indiana in Round 1 -- no longer looks like the outright nightmare it would have been if you brought it up a couple weeks ago. | ||
| 17 | 2 Last Week: 19 | Now they're going to start winning the close ones? The Wolves' improbable comeback in Miami to win in double OT by one point surely adds to the frustration for Kevin Love, who faces his sixth consecutive season out of the playoffs because they've been losing those games all season. | ||
| 18 | 4 Last Week: 22 | The manner in which they stormed to a (no joke) 55-23 halftime lead in Indy, right after breaking out of a 1-7 funk to smack down Cleveland's playoff hopes, suddenly suggests that the Hawks do prefer a first-round date with Miami to a lottery pick. Either that or they just can't help themselves. | ||
| 19 | 2 Last Week: 17 | If the Knicks don't make the playoffs, I don't think we can blame Carmelo Anthony. Playing with what he says is an occasionally "dead arm," Melo could become the first player to average at least 28 points and eight boards in a single season since Shaq in 2000-01. | ||
| 20 | 2 Last Week: 18 | Kyrie Irving, as you've surely heard, wonders why so many of us media pests are obsessed with his future. His Cavs, though, are wasting a favorable schedule and blowing their late chance to give us all something else to obsess over: LeBron's Miami Heat vs. Cleveland in the playoffs! | ||
| 21 |
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Last Week: 21 | A trivia question to distract Denver fans from their team's failure to extend a run of 10 straight trips to the postseason: How can we get away with saying that the Nuggets are in a class by themselves with the Spurs? Answer: Those are the only two teams this season not to employ a single rookie. | ||
| 22 | 2 Last Week: 20 | In this season of Shaquille O'Neal-esque production, Anthony Davis keeps picking up what Shaq used to call "knick knack" injuries. The only solace for Davis' injury-ravaged Pels is that The Brow is starting to be increasingly adept at shaking off whatever ailment comes his way. | ||
| 23 | 1 Last Week: 24 | One of the stats of the season in Sacramento is the Kings' 0-10 record when DeMarcus Cousins is not in uniform. Things aren't quite that bleak when Isaiah Thomas can't dress; Sacramento is 2-5 since its lucky little point guard went down with a quad issue as he heads into restricted free agency. | ||
| 24 | 1 Last Week: 23 | These Lakers are just two L's shy of the highest loss total in team history. The closest thing to progress: No foe has scored 130 points on L.A. this month after it happened five times in March, which accounted for the highest single-month total for any team since the Nuggets in 1991. | ||
| 25 | 1 Last Week: 26 | The DeVos family insists that the team, contrary to recent speculation, is not for sale. The next question to answer: Are injuries a sufficient alibi to explain why we've seen such modest progress since last season? Orlando is 42-117 since parting with Dwight Howard in the Trade No One Won. | ||
| 26 | 1 Last Week: 25 | Friday's win over New Orleans was just Utah's third since February, with the other two coming at home against Philly and Orlando. The Jazz lost recently to Detroit by 20 -- at home -- to give you an idea how things have been trending for Tyrone Corbin with five games to go on his contract. | ||
| 27 |
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Last Week: 27 | Anyone remember that 12-14 start? Not easy after watching Boston lose to Philly at home -- again. It's surely even tougher for Brad Stevens, with rumbles that the Celts' ensuing 11-40 record, even though he knew he signed up for a lot of losing, is starting to get to the Butler import. | ||
| 28 | 2 Last Week: 30 | Say hello to the new owners of the longest active playoff drought in the Eastern Conference. It's five seasons and counting for the Pistons, who just watched the Raptors and Wizards leave that dreaded club and were reduced last week to making the unraveling Pacers feel good about themselves. | ||
| 29 |
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Last Week: 29 | News bulletin: After all the tanking accusations Philly has faced this season, maybe the most amazing aspect of the story is that this team won't go down as the worst team of the 2013-14 season. Not unless you think that the Sixers will finish 0-5 -- and that the Bucks will finish 4-1. | ||
| 30 | 2 Last Week: 28 | The Bucks made a slew of summer signings, headlined by O.J. Mayo, because Herb Kohl believes his building would be vacant if the team didn't go all-out to make the playoffs. What did it get him? Just the second 60-loss season in team history -- and headache after headache with Larry Sanders. | ||
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