Monday, March 16
Cavs Climbing
The reasons behind the Cavaliers rise to the #3 spot. Cary Chow and Marc Stein creak down Week 20.
But they frankly needed a little help, too.
The suddenly uncertain status of LeBron James' right knee, after an awkward landing Sunday night in Orlando, gave your trusty Power Rankings committee (of one) some pause before bumping Cleveland up to its loftiest position yet.
The reality, though, is that Memphis' recent struggles and San Antonio's loss of Manu Ginobili for at least a week after Ginobili's own ankle issues Sunday opened the door wider for the Cavs. Knowing as little as we did at press time about the gravity of James' injury, Cleveland had to be the new No. 3 after its impressive wins (for different reasons) in Texas last week over the Dallas Mavericks and Spurs.
Cleveland's previous rankings peak this season was three turns at No. 4. And we'll delve further into this week's order on Stein Line Live. You can comment below on the latest 1-to-30 ladder, which as always was compiled with data and research assistant from our friends at ESPN Stats & Information and the Elias Sports Bureau. You're also invited to rank the teams yourself here.
| 2014-15 Power Rankings: Week 20 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 |
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Last Week: 1 | What should we give more credence to? Golden State's double-digit point differential? Or its bid to become the first team to lead the league in FG percentage and FG percentage D since the 1980-81 Sixers? Or the fact that the Dubs, like the Hawks, didn't win a playoff series last season? | ||
| 2 |
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Last Week: 2 | The Hawks appear to be convincing Las Vegas that they're a true title contender. This season's first team to 50 wins -- which opened as a 60-to-1 shot to win it all with the Westgate SuperBook -- is 6-1 now, tied with OKC and trailing only Cleveland (2-1) and Golden State (5-2). | ||
| 3 | 3 Last Week: 6 | As jaw-dropping as those 57 points were, this has to make it even more special for Kyrie Irving: No Gregg Popovich team, in Pop's 19 seasons, had ever surrendered a 50-point game until Kyrie got 'em Thursday. A mere four days later, of course, nothing else matters but LeBron's knee. | ||
| 4 | 1 Last Week: 3 | The Grizz still rank 13th in offensive efficiency, which continues to be higher than we've usually found them for much of the Grit N' Grind Era, but they've looked clunkier than that at times in this 7-6 stretch since Memphis pulled into the All-Star break with a franchise-record 39 wins. | ||
| 5 | 1 Last Week: 4 | Let this marinate as news of Manu Ginobili's freshly twisted ankle sinks in: San Antonio has managed to trot out its preferred starting lineup of Tony Parker, Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard, Tim Duncan and Tiago Splitter for only 14 games all season. The Spurs are 11-3 in those games. | ||
| 6 | 1 Last Week: 5 | More signs Dwight Howard is missed more than we've been led to believe: Houston was out-rebounded by 20 in back-to-back games -- which has happened to no other team this season -- before James Harden restored order Sunday and nudged 'em to 24-4 when he scores at least 30. | ||
| 7 | 2 Last Week: 9 | The Blazers are 6-1 in March. They beat Houston at home and opened a five-game road trip with a 16-point W in Toronto just after the Wes Matthews injury that was supposed to end their season. They're hanging in there quite nicely without their best defender/emotional leader. | ||
| 8 | 1 Last Week: 7 | The Clips will live with 9-6 during Blake Griffin's absence given how rough the schedule was. They'll also live with DeAndre Jordan's free-throw woes when he gives them so much elsewhere, but Sunday marked the second time this season he missed 7-plus FTs in a one- or two-point loss. | ||
| 9 | 1 Last Week: 8 | An 11-5 finish would secure the best record ever for a team that started 3-12 or worse through 15 games. The Bulls finished 47-35 after a 2-13 start in 2004-05. Russell Westbrook, meanwhile, is up to eight triple-doubles. That's the most in one season since Jason Kidd's 13 in 2007-08. | ||
| 10 |
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Last Week: 10 | How cathartic was Friday night's long-awaited rout of the Clippers? It was the first game in which the Mavs managed a 20-point lead in more than a month, going all the way back to Feb. 5 in Sacramento. The question has to be asked: Is Dallas in any danger of being passed up by OKC? | ||
| 11 | 1 Last Week: 12 | Fully agree with Frank Vogel's view that, as hot as the Pacers are, any suggestion Paul George "would disrupt anything is pretty laughable." You take your time bringing him back because he's your franchise player. Not because of a No. 7 seed's momentum or anything else similarly silly. | ||
| 12 | 3 Last Week: 15 | Which jumps off the page more? The fact that Utah (10-2) and Indiana (9-2) boast the league's top two records since the All-Star break? Or the fact that the Rudy Gobert-led Jazz have allowed just two -- two! -- of those 12 opponents to score more than 88 points. | ||
| 13 | 2 Last Week: 11 | The NBA's last three MVPs led the league in PER. Five of the last six MVPs, in fact, led the league in PER. Yet here's Anthony Davis, only just 22, leading the league with one of the gaudiest PER readings in history (31.67) ... and still struggling to crack the top four in this MVP race. | ||
| 14 | 1 Last Week: 13 | The Bulls, even amid their worst stretch of the season, remain right there for the No. 3 seed and still rank as one of only three teams in the East with a winning record against .500-or-better teams. Question is: Would they rather be No. 3 or No. 4 to be in Atlanta's path or Cleveland's? | ||
| 15 | 1 Last Week: 14 | DeMar DeRozan is averaging 25.0 points on 48.2 percent shooting this month compared to 16.7 PPG on .339 shooting in February. The Raps, though, have slumped into a tie for 22nd in defensive efficiency with Brooklyn during their 2-10 skid, which tends to overshadow all other stats. | ||
| 16 | 2 Last Week: 18 | Props to John Wall for stepping up to say that the Wizards' recent 4-13 funk "started with me." The reality, though, is that he's been playing at less than full capacity for weeks, desperate to drag the Wiz out of their stupor. They just won three in a row for the first time since early January. | ||
| 17 | 3 Last Week: 20 | Remember early in the season when the Celtics always lost the close ones late? Check out what's happened since Jan. 22. They've played a league-high 18 games in that span that were within five points in the final five minutes ... and won 11 of them. Bill Simmons' playoff dream lives! | ||
| 18 | 1 Last Week: 19 | The Suns are 7-12 since Feb. 1 and realistically still clinging to life in the West's playoff chase only in the mathematical sense. Of the five games to go in this purportedly favorable stretch featuring nine games at home out of 10, only one foe left (Sacramento) is a sub-.500 team. | ||
| 19 | 3 Last Week: 16 | Subject line of an email we received from an ESPN Stats & Info colleague last week: "Khris Middleton: The best glue guy in the NBA?" So, yes, I'd say the secret's out on the guy known for a lot more now than that December triple in Phoenix that got him on "SportsCenter." | ||
| 20 | 3 Last Week: 17 | What should have been an upbeat week, with Kemba Walker finally returning from knee surgery and 18 games remaining, would have been disastrous if the Hornets hadn't found a way to turn around a 19-point deficit against visiting Chicago. Two bad home losses preceded that resurrection. | ||
| 21 |
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Last Week: 21 | Only seven teams in history have missed the playoffs immediately following a trip to the NBA Finals. We're sticking to last week's claim that this goes down as a productive season for Miami no matter what ... but Indy, Charlotte and Boston all have more momentum in the race for Nos. 7-8. | ||
| 22 | 6 Last Week: 28 | Extenuating circumstances or not, Melvin Hunt's Nuggets just became the first team with a losing record to beat the teams leading the respective conferences in back-to-back games since the 1994-95 Boston Celtics. Hunt is 6-2 thanks to those recent wins over the Hawks and Warriors. | ||
| 23 | 1 Last Week: 22 | What so recently was a list of five teams faring better on the road than at home is down to two -- Miami and these Nets -- thanks to some recent travails on their travels for the Bulls, Pistons and Magic. The Nets are a league-leading four wins better on the road than they are in Brooklyn. | ||
| 24 | 1 Last Week: 25 | Not paying too much attention to the results in these early days of George Karl's reign, since draft position means far more to the Kings at the minute than wins. Yet I'm fairly sure it's a priority for the new coach to get this group playing muchbetter D going forward. This can't continue. | ||
| 25 | 1 Last Week: 24 | It would be unfair to suggest this was all somehow triggered by his arrival, but there's no escaping the fact Detroit is 2-10 since trading for Reggie Jackson, dragged down by a team-wide shooting slump and a rough stretch of schedule that offered just one home game in the last eight. | ||
| 26 | 1 Last Week: 27 | You can't quite put him in the Hassan Whiteside class just yet, but Robert Covington might snag a spot on this season's All-Finds Team. In 61 NBA games, Covington is up to 125 made 3-pointers, which is the second-highest total in league history that quickly behind Damian Lillard's 131. | ||
| 27 | 4 Last Week: 23 | With 138 more minutes, Kevin Garnett will become the fifth player in history to crack 50,000 for his career, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Jason Kidd and Elvin Hayes. The problem: Knee soreness has shelved KG for the Wolves' last four outings since a surprise W over Portland. | ||
| 28 | 2 Last Week: 26 | With Elfrid Payton, Victor Oladipo and the relentlessly overlooked Nikola Vucevic -- who happens to be averaging 19.6 PPG and 11.2 RPG -- Orlando continues to be rather watchable for a team 26 games under .500. Latest evidence: This Oladipo smash over Cleveland's Matty Dellavedova. | ||
| 29 |
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Last Week: 29 | On the day that the Lakers became this season's first team to be eliminated from the playoffs, ESPN's Basketball Power Index rated their chances of finishing in the top five of the lottery and keeping their first-round pick at 79.5 percent. Doesn't quite sound like a lock, does it? | ||
| 30 |
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Last Week: 30 | Info you need to know if you love the Knicks and want to talk about anything but the current Knicks: New York has a 25 percent shot at the No. 1 overall pick if it finishes with the league's worst record, then 21.5 percent for No. 2, 17.8 percent for No. 3 and 35.7 percent for the No. 4 pick. | ||
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