What more can you say about the Warriors?
All of those seem like perfectly reasonable questions after the Golden State Warriors moved to 53-5 with one of the greatest escapes -- sealed by one of the most daring of game-winning daggers -- in recent memory.
Who would dare doubt the Warriors' ability to get to 73 wins now? Or whether they can achieve any of the other previously unfathomable targets listed above, after what we saw in Oklahoma City on Saturday night? It's not exactly a bold leap to point out that things seem to be going their way.
Toronto is up to an impressive No. 3 with the East's best success rate (19-6) in 2016; Portland has risen to a wholly unexpected No. 8; and San Antonio remains just 3½ games behind Golden State in the Western Conference standings thanks to the Spurs' own ridiculous 69-13 pace. But these days it's a challenge to divert your eyes from the Warriors to anyone else in the NBA universe, with records like the 1985-86 Celtics' 40-1 mark at Boston Garden and the Bulls' 33-8 road ledger in 1995-96 legitimately within reach now for Steph Curry and his buddies.
You can comment below on the latest 1-to-30 order assembled by the Committee of One, which offers its deepest thanks to our pals within the NBA wing of ESPN Stats & Information, as well as the Elias Sports Bureau, for the priceless data assistance they provide week after week to help us with all of our calculations.
| 2015-16 Power Rankings: Week 18 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 | 
|
--
Last Week: 1 | Fresh off becoming the first team in league history to record at least six victories on two road trips in a single season, Golden State will enjoy the luxury of playing out the 82-game schedule with a league-high 17 home dates remaining and only seven more on the road. Eight of the Warriors' next nine games, in fact, are at Oracle Arena, the exception being Sunday at the Lakers. | |
| 2 | 
|
--
Last Week: 2 | A 7-1 mark on the Rodeo Road Trip, which also featured the safe return from a calf issue for Kawhi Leonard and more big numbers from LaMarcus Aldridge, enabled the Spurs to become just the ninth team in history to reach 50 wins in fewer than 60 games. This is the first season in league history in which two teams have done that, with San Antonio up to a ridiculous 17 50-win seasons in a row. | |
| 3 | 
| 2 Last Week: 5 | The Raps were on a best-in-franchise-history tear of 17-3 before they beat Cleveland at home in a nail-biter that pushed 'em to 11-8 in games this season when held to less than 100 points. San Antonio is the only other team in the league this season with a winning record (12-7) when held below triple digits, so there really couldn't have been a much better time to rest Kyle Lowry than Sunday night. | |
| 4 | 
|
--
Last Week: 4 | Thursday's rematch in Oakland gives the Thunder an immediate opportunity to prove they haven't been spooked for good against Golden State after what happened Saturday night. Yet it's clear OKC, having dropped four of five, has been rocked by recent events. And understandably so, given the tragedy (Monty Williams) and injury (Mo Cheeks) that have robbed coach Billy Donovan of his top two assistants. | |
| 5 | 
| 2 Last Week: 3 | Kyrie Irving's bout with bed bugs. An unexpected loss to Miami in the Joe Johnson sweepstakes. And an L in Friday night's showdown with Toronto clinched defeat in the season series with the hard-charging Raps. The Cavs -- 11-6 (.647) under Ty Lue after so unhappily starting 30-11 (.731) under David Blatt -- couldn't have endured a much worse week while Steph Curry was breaking Twitter. | |
| 6 | 
| 1 Last Week: 7 | Given that we've been so focused here on records since Jan. 23 because of what the Warriors (13-1) and Blazers (13-2) have achieved in that span, we would be remiss if we didn't point out that the Celtics -- despite standing pat at the trade deadline -- are fourth in the same stretch at 12-4. Boston, incidentally, plays host to Portland on Wednesday night in the Who Did The Nets Help Most Bowl. | |
| 7 | 
| 1 Last Week: 6 | Distinction that probably sounds better than it really is: DeAndre Jordan (first in FG percentage), J.J. Redick (second in 3-point percentage) and Jamal Crawford (first in FT percentage) might make the Clips the first team in history to field the league leader in all three of those categories. A more important distinction: They are the last team to beat Golden State in a playoff series, which has to count for something. | |
| 8 | 
| 1 Last Week: 9 | Portland is a heady 13-2 since Jan. 23, which accounts for the league's second-best record in the span behind only the Warriors -- whose only loss in that span, of course, was inflicted by these same Blazers. Better yet: Amid cries that the recent success has been schedule-aided, Damian Lillard & Co. just began 11 of 13 games on the road with an impressive back-to-back sweep in Chicago and Indy. | |
| 9 | 
| 2 Last Week: 11 | It's an undeniable coup for the Heat to have beaten out Cleveland, Atlanta and every other interested playoff suitor for Joe Johnson, but the move only makes good sense if the Heat are indeed able to get under the luxury-tax line (again) through their forthcoming buyout of Beno Udrih. This team's ceiling just isn't high enough, even with Johnson added, to justify re-entering the tax. | |
| 10 | 
| 2 Last Week: 12 | Kris Humphries has to be a welcome addition, given Atlanta's well-chronicled issues on the boards, but losing out to Miami (as opposed to Cleveland) in the Joe Johnson race is a painful cut, not only because of the fun headlines such a reunion would have generated, but also because that's the sort of bold move that could have made up for the Hawks' letdown of a trade deadline. | |
| 11 | 
| 3 Last Week: 8 | He's realistically not going to unseat Karl-Anthony Towns (or even pass Kristaps Porzingis and Jahlil Okafor) in the NBA Rookie of the Year balloting. But we should have had more to say about Myles Turner in our Second Trimester awards over the weekend, given how he appeared in only 10 of Indiana's first 32 games but is averaging nearly 14 points and seven rebounds as a starter entering the Pacers' February finale in Cleveland. | |
| 12 | 
| 2 Last Week: 14 | Don't blame you for expecting us to launch into a tirade about the Grizzlies' inability to win at Phoenix, with or without Marc Gasol, but we decided to go light when we got wind of this one. Can you name the only player in the past 20 seasons who can claim to have made three 40-footers (or longer) in a single season like Steph Curry this season? Yup: It's Zach Randolph from last season. | |
| 13 | 
|
--
Last Week: 13 | After a promising 12-6 surge since mid-January that began in earnest with a double-overtime win over Utah, Charlotte enters what realistically ranks as its most crucial stretch of the season if it wants to secure a playoff berth for Michael Jordan. The No. 7 Hornets sport the third-best home record in the Eastern Conference at 19-9 ... and play 10 of their next 12 games in Charlotte. | |
| 14 | 
| 4 Last Week: 18 | Even with the Pistons on a mini-roll, I have to ask this again as award season nears: At a time when ESPN's Basketball Power Index gives Golden State 51 percent odds to win 73 games and break the 1995-96 Bulls' single-season record, Andre Drummond is making only 35.9 percent of his free throws. Which makes us wonder: How much should those FT struggles affect Drummond's All-NBA case? | |
| 15 | 
| 5 Last Week: 10 | Don't really think there's any way he can win the award -- not with what the Warriors (Steve Kerr/Luke Walton), Spurs (Gregg Popovich), Raptors (Dwane Casey), Celtics (Brad Stevens) and Blazers (Terry Stotts) are doing -- but I suspect Quin Snyder's name is going to pop up on some coach of the year ballots if he can steer the Jazz into the playoffs after all of their injuries to front-liners. | |
| 16 | 
|
--
Last Week: 16 | A playoff spot is by no means certain, but the Mavs have built up a nice lead on the field in pursuit of the "Living Dangerously" crown, thanks to their league-leading 10 OT games (7-3) as well as a league-high 11 wins after facing a double-digit deficit. Amid a constant push/pull with coach Rick Carlisle, Chandler Parsons might be playing the best ball of his life, averaging 21.6 PPG in Dallas' past seven outings. | |
| 17 | 
|
--
Last Week: 17 | It took a 34-point second half from James Harden, and thus the fifth 40-point game of his career against the Trail Blazers, for Houston to turn around last week's trip to Portland and ensure that the Rockets didn't get swept on the road by the two teams closest to them in the West standings. But they still seem plenty ripe to be squeezed out of the playoffs by the Mavs, Blazers and Jazz. | |
| 18 | 
| 2 Last Week: 20 | The Wiz are 5-2 since the All-Star break and the acquisition of Markieff Morris after running up a lead of 30 against the LeBron-less Cavs. John Wall, meanwhile, is up to 19 20-and-10 games this season, second only to Russell Westbrook. ESPN's Basketball Power Index, though, gives Washington only an 8 percent chance of finding its way into the playoffs and a potential Round 1 matchup with Cleveland. | |
| 19 | 
| 4 Last Week: 15 | On Jan. 9, Chicago had the best opponent FG percentage in the league at .416 and was relying on its team D to maintain a top-two seed in the East. The 5-14 skid that followed was the Bulls' worst 19-game stretch in any of the past 11 seasons and -- when combined with Jimmy Butler's uncertain health -- has put the league's third-longest active playoff streak (seven seasons in a row) in jeopardy. | |
| 20 | 
| 1 Last Week: 19 | Don't make us talk about that toe injury -- during (ugh) warm-ups -- that cost us a dose of Anthony Davis vs. Karl-Anthony Towns on Saturday night. Let us stay focused on The Brow's week-old eruption for 59 and 20 that gave us seven different 50-point scorers this season ... which means we need only one more to tie the single-season record from 1989-90. | |
| 21 | 
|
--
Last Week: 21 | The Magic have steadied themselves to some degree, going 5-4 after that 2-15 funk launched their 2016, with Evan Fournier in a particularly nice groove until a wrist injury forced him to sit out Sunday night's rout of Philadelphia. The aforementioned dismantling of the Sixers also featured the first 20-point game of dunk maestro Aaron Gordon's career, with 18 of his 22 points in the first half. | |
| 22 | 
|
--
Last Week: 22 | Jason Kidd continues to be one of the most aggressive/creative coaches in the league. First he took the bold step of asking Greg Monroe to move to the bench to help alleviate the starting unit's defensive struggles. Now he's got Giannis Antetokounmpo playmaking more, which resulted in a 27-point, 12-rebound, 10-assist eruption in a win over the Lakers. What next? | |
| 23 | 
|
--
Last Week: 23 | DeMarcus Cousins is the first player in franchise history to crack double figures in terms of 35-point games in a single season -- with 10 -- since Tiny Archibald in Kansas City way back in 1974-75. Yet Cousins is also on pace to become just the second player in league history, along with Detroit's Dave Bing in 1970-71, to average 30+ PPG at home and less than 25 PPG on the road. | |
| 24 | 
| 3 Last Week: 27 | It was another week of milestones for Karl-Anthony Towns, who became just the third player in the past 20 years to ring up 1,000 points, 500 rebounds and 100 blocks before their 60th NBA game -- joining Tim Duncan and Pau Gasol -- as well as the third-youngest player in history to post a 30-point, 15-rebound game, putting himself in an exclusive club with LeBron James and John Drew. | |
| 25 | 
| 1 Last Week: 24 | As if blowing a 23-point lead in Dallas wasn't bad enough, Danilo Gallinari offered a pretty grim prognosis about the sprained ankle he suffered in the same depressing game that brings yet another interruption to a "career year," in the words of Nuggets coach Mike Malone. "It's worse than the one I had just two months ago," Gallo said, referring to an injury that cost him six games in December. | |
| 26 | 
| 1 Last Week: 25 | Fan interactions for the Knicks went from charming (Kristaps Porzingis delicately fielding prom invites) to alarming (Heat fans taking over Madison Square Garden ) in a hurry. We also saw last week Porzingis record his 11th 20-point game, most for a Knicks rookie since Patrick Ewing (27) and Gerald Wilkins (17) in 1985-86 -- but even second place in the ROY race is no lock for Zinger. | |
| 27 | 
| 1 Last Week: 26 | The first step to getting out of our bottom five for the Nets, if that can still be classified as an important goal this season for Mikhail Prokhorov & Co., is getting themselves off the following list: Brooklyn joins Phoenix and the Los Angeles Lakers as the only teams on the NBA map at present that rank in the bottom five in both offensive and defensive efficiency. | |
| 28 | 
|
--
Last Week: 28 | The Sixers fell to 5-20 in 2016 with the rout they absorbed in Orlando on Sunday night, and for all of their supposed improvement since adding Ish Smith, they are combining with the Lakers to give us two teams on pace to finish with sub-.200 records. This would be only the fifth season that ever happened -- and the first since 2009-10 (when it was the Wolves and Nets) -- if Philly or the Lakers can't pick it up here. | |
| 29 | 
|
--
Last Week: 29 | Kobe Bryant is the fifth player in league history with the longevity to make it all the way into a 20th NBA season, following Kareem Abdur-Jabbar (20), Robert Parish (21), Kevin Willis (21) and Kevin Garnett (who's in the midst of No. 21). Sitting out Friday's home defeat to Memphis means Bryant has played in 20 of the Lakers' 26 games at home this season, and 29 of 34 on the road. | |
| 30 | 
|
--
Last Week: 30 | After 13 consecutive defeats, as well as an 0-9 start under interim coach Earl Watson, Phoenix was at risk of slipping out of the rankings entirely and cede the No. 30 slot to the NBA D-League's Canton Charge (who went 12-0 in February) until the Suns surprised Memphis at home Saturday night. One more L would have clinched the longest single-season losing streak in franchise history. | |
| ||||
No comments:
Post a Comment