Current NBA Power Rankings: Streaking Hawks

By Marc Stein | ESPN.com
Monday, Feb. 2

ESPN Illustration

The Atlanta Hawks are one win shy of becoming just the fifth team in NBA history to win 20 consecutive regular-season games, knowing full well that three of the previous four teams to achieve that feat went on to win an NBA championship.
But the solitary win they need to get Monday night at New Orleans, with Anthony Davis (groin) expected to return to the lineup for the Pelicans, is one of only four tough assignments in the week to come for the hottest team in professional sports. Sandwiched between Wednesday's home date with Washington and Sunday's daunting trip to Memphis is Friday night's long-awaited showdown at home with the Golden State Warriors in what we've been calling the other Super Bowl.
The Warriors have topped ESPN.com's weekly NBA Power Rankings six times this season, with the Hawks now up to five straight Mondays at the rankings summit.
Let's see what happens first, though, against the Pels. The 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers (33 wins in a row), 2012-13 Miami Heat (27) and 1970-71 Milwaukee Bucks (20) all fashioned winning streaks spanning at least 20 games on their way to winning a championship. Only the Houston Rockets, who uncorked a 22-game winning streak during the 2007-08 season, couldn't carry that lengthy spell of invincibility into the postseason.
We'll delve further into this week's order -- with Memphis, Toronto and Cleveland all in the midst of their own tidy little winning streaks -- on Stein Line Live. You can comment below on our 1-to-30 order, which as always was compiled with data and research assistance from our friends at ESPN Stats & Information and the Elias Sports Bureau, or you can rank them.

2014-15 Power Rankings: Week 14
RANK	TEAM / RECORD	TRENDING	COMMENTS
1	Atlanta 40-8	-- Last Week: 1	The Hawks' 17-0 January was the best month this league has ever seen. But the week that capped it was undeniably rough for a team that hasn't lost since the day after Christmas. Thabo Sefolosha is out, DeMarre Carroll is ailing, and this week's schedule is daunting with a capital D.
2	Golden State 37-8	-- Last Week: 2	Bad timing for the Dubs to have, as Steve Kerr contends, lost their edge. They have dropped two of three and, on top of Friday's much-hyped stop in Atlanta, will play 11 of 13 games on the road. No other team has such a stretch on its schedule this season.
3	Memphis 35-12	-- Last Week: 3	The Griz are 10-1 in their last 11 games after going 4-7 in the previous 11. Zach Randolph, remember, missed nine of the 11 games in that losing stretch. With Z-Bo in uniform, Memphis is a breezy 31-7. Marc Gasol & Co. have inched up to No. 7 in defensive efficiency.
4	Los Angeles 33-15	1 Last Week: 5	Count the committee (of one) among those who assumed that the Clips had a decent shot to sign Kevin Garnett once he secured his seemingly inevitable buyout in Brooklyn. But listening to KG address the matter over the weekend, it doesn't seem as though pursuing a buyout is in the plans.
5	San Antonio 30-18	1 Last Week: 4	Three more wins will establish Gregg Popovich as just the ninth coach in league history to reach 1,000 wins. Yet something tells me he's far happier with the Spurs' 10-4 January after that brutal 8-10 December. Especially with the annual Rodeo Road Trip looming Sunday and running through Feb. 28.
6	Cleveland 29-20	4 Last Week: 10	Nothing has gone according to the script for the Cavs. Nothing. Latest proof: Cleveland has won 10 in a row and can barely barge into the headlines because of what the Hawks are doing. A home win Monday night over Philly, mind you, will take LeBron & Co. to a season-high 10 games over .500.
7	Toronto 33-15	6 Last Week: 13	The Raps want to believe they have relocated their mojo after capping a four-wins-in-five-nights stretch by finding a way to beat the Wiz in D.C. in OT after blowing a big fourth-quarter lead. This is the first time in team history that Toronto has cracked the 30-win barrier before the All-Star break.
8	Houston 33-15	2 Last Week: 6	The Rockets' record since adding Josh Smith (13-8) looks a lot like the Mavericks' record since the Rajon Rondo deal. What matters most for Houston, though, is getting Dwight Howard's knee right for the postseason, with at least a month away from the court prescribed for starters.
9	Dallas 32-17	1 Last Week: 8	Of the 11 teams playing .600-or-better basketball, only one will have no one in the All-Star Game: Dallas. The Mavs, meanwhile, are 13-8 since acquiring Rajon Rondo, scoring seven points per 100 possessions fewer in that span but allowing 4.5 points fewer per 100 possessions.
10	Portland 32-16	3 Last Week: 7	Despite LaMarcus Aldridge's playing-hurt heroics, Portland has gone 2-8 since its 30-8 start and has tumbled to 11th in offensive efficiency. Imagine where the Blazers would be if they didn't have a league-leading 14 wins this season when trailing at some stage in the fourth quarter.
11	Phoenix 28-21	1 Last Week: 12	In the longest homestand in franchise history, Phoenix went 6-2, and the team has gone 16-7 since a 12-14 start. The downside: A 2-7 mark in games decided by three points or fewer means that the Suns are better in one-possession games than only Indiana (2-10), New York (1-5) and Minnesota (1-4).
12	Chicago 30-19	3 Last Week: 9	The Bulls suffered four two-game skids in January to cap the month at a worrisome 8-9. Also at least mildly troubling: Newly minted All-Star Jimmy Butler's scoring average has declined for three successive months, from 21.9 PPG in November to 21.5 PPG in December to 17.6 PPG in January.
13	New Orleans 25-22	1 Last Week: 14	The Pelicans are a flat-out enigma. They are a heady 18-12 against the rest of the West but a costly 7-10 against the East. They are also a promising eighth leaguewide in offensive efficiency but tied for 22nd with Denver in defensive efficiency despite employing The Brow and Omer Asik.
14	Washington 31-17	3 Last Week: 11	This is the first season since 1983-84 that the Wiz have posted a winning record in November, December and January. Now to see what they can do Wednesday night in Atlanta about their struggles with the Hawks, having lost to the East leader twice already by an average margin of 17.5 PPG.
15	Milwaukee 25-22	3 Last Week: 18	The Bucks are one of just three teams with a winning record (along with Dallas and Phoenix) that can't claim at least one All-Star. In related news, Brandon Knight is having a career year in APG (5.3), RPG (4.2) and PER (18.45) and isn't far off in scoring (17.7 PPG compared to last season's 17.9 PPG).
16	Oklahoma City 23-24	1 Last Week: 15	The Thunder, back below .500 just like that, have to pass New Orleans before they can even think about catching stubborn Phoenix. The coming week, then, is a huge one in OKC's season, with a trip to Bourbon Street on Wednesday and the Pelicans in town Friday.
17	Charlotte 20-27	-- Last Week: 17	Jabs about the softness of Charlotte's schedule during this 10-3 surge into the East's No. 8 slot have to be tempered a tad by the fact that Kemba Walker has missed four of those wins while Al Jefferson missed six. (Question: Was that really Lance Stephenson with 13 assists in Saturday's win in Denver?)
18	Miami 21-26	2 Last Week: 16	Is there something with a better ring to it than Hassanity? We're open to suggestions. Another pertinent question: How long does Hassan Whiteside have to keep this up before we start talking him as a legitimate most improved player threat to Jimmy Butler? Whiteside's PER is a ridiculous 27.97!
19	Utah 17-30	1 Last Week: 20	Not a bad little January for Derrick Favors, who had six double-doubles and hiked his PER to a robust 22.37. The Jazz, meanwhile, are quietly up to a passable 11-11 since their rough 6-19 start after capping the month with that memorable Friday night undressing of the mighty Warriors.
20	Detroit 18-30	1 Last Week: 19	Winning the Josh Smith Bowl was significant in itself for the Pistons -- on the same night as Kevin Love's return to Minneapolis, no less -- but mostly because Detroit dropped its first four games in the wake of losing Brandon Jennings rather than the more attention-grabbing Smith storyline.
21	Boston 16-30	-- Last Week: 21	Seventeen days? Is our math right? Have 17 days indeed elapsed since we last saw Trader Danny swing a deal? Something tells me the Celts will spend these next two-plus weeks before the deadline thinking much more about trying to make another trade or two as opposed to chasing a playoff berth.
22	Sacramento 17-29	2 Last Week: 24	The selection of DeMarcus Cousins as Kobe Bryant's replacement means that the Kings' All-Star drought, dating to Peja Stojakovic and Brad Miller in 2004, is over at last. You can read how agonizing it was for NBA commissioner Adam Silver to have to choose between Boogie and Dame Lillard.
23	Indiana 17-32	1 Last Week: 22	It's not all the Pacers' fault -- blame Miami too -- but this will be just the second time since the NBA established two conferences in 1970-71 that the two teams from the previous conference finals are both below .500 at the All-Star break. It happened in 1981-82 as well to Houston and Kansas City.
24	Denver 19-29	1 Last Week: 25	When we talk about the purportedly dwindling home-court advantage in the NBA that had everyone buzzing last week, don't we have to prominently mention how Denver -- once so feared on its home floor -- is so easily bullied at the Pepsi Center these days? (Ditto for once-mighty Miami.)
25	Brooklyn 18-28	2 Last Week: 23	Nine more boards will take Kevin Garnett past Nate Thurmond for eighth on the NBA's all-time rebounding list. The Nets, meanwhile, have 17 days to find a palatable deal for Brook Lopez and (gulp) an East-leading 21 games left on the schedule against teams with winning records.
26	New York 10-38	3 Last Week: 29	Carmelo Anthony is averaging 25.9 points and 7.0 boards in his first seven games since returning from persistent knee trouble and has sparked the Knicks to a 5-2 mark in those games. That includes quality home wins over the Pels and Thunder for New York, which is 0-11 when Melo sits.
27	Philadelphia 10-38	1 Last Week: 28	Make that five triple-doubles for Michael Carter-Williams since he entered the league in 2013-14 -- tied with Lance Stephenson for No. 1 in that span -- and be advised that the Sixers (as well as the Knicks) quietly moved into double-figure win territory last week when no one was paying attention.
28	Orlando 15-35	2 Last Week: 26	Scott Skiles' name didn't emerge from thin air as a potential replacement for the under-fire Jacque Vaughn. Don't forgot that the gritty, gutty Skiles was once upon a time voted as the most popular player in franchise history -- amid the likes of Shaq, Penny, Dwight, T-Mac, Grant Hill and D-Scott.
29	Los Angeles 13-35	2 Last Week: 27	It's the smallest of consolations, but beating Chicago enabled L.A. to avoid just the second 10-game losing streak in team history. The Lakers' only double-digit slide was in 1948-49. San Antonio is next in line with just two such skids since the NBA/ABA merger in 1976-77.
30	Minnesota 8-39	-- Last Week: 30	The committee (of one) catches a break. We happen to be in town and thus bound for press row Monday night to see Ricky Rubio's return after a 42-game absence. With Rubio healthy and all the Wolves' potential trade chips, they are as watchable as any eight-win team can possibly be.
Biggest Jump: 6 Biggest Drop: 3