Power Rankings: Warriors rule again
Week: Team:
The decisions continue to be agonizing for ESPN.com's NBA Power Rankings committee (of one).
The Golden State Warriors, unlucky to be bumped out of the top spot last week, have narrowly reclaimed their No. 1 status ahead of the Memphis Grizzlies and Toronto Raptors on this Rankings Monday.
Riding a five-game winning streak and boasting the league's No. 1 defense, Golden State has lost only in Phoenix (without the injured Klay Thompson) and at home to San Antonio. Steve Kerr's first month as an NBA coach concludes with road dates at Miami, Orlando, Charlotte and Detroit.
The Grizzlies, though, are right there, and likely would have leapfrogged the Warriors had a stomach virus that spread through the whole team not contributed to Memphis' second-half fade in Toronto on Wednesday night.
This week's most notable movers include the East-leading Raptors (No. 8 up to No. 3), Denver (up 10 spots to No. 17) and Orlando (No. 25 to No. 18) as well as two teams going the other way: Cleveland dropping nine spots to No. 15 and Charlotte dipping from No. 19 to No. 24.
A more detailed look at this week's order can be found on Stein Line Live. You can also comment below on this week's 1-to-30 ladder, which, as always, was assembled with the usual dose of peerless dishing from ESPN Stats & Info and the Elias Sports Bureau.
| 2014-15 Power Rankings: Week 4 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 |  | 2 Last Week: 3 | How many rookies have won Coach of the Month in their maiden month? Steve Kerr is locked in a battle there with Dave Joerger. The Dubs, meanwhile, are down to 12.6 turnovers per game during this five-game win streak. And Mo Speights has emerged as an unforeseen Sixth Man Award candidate. | |
| 2 |  | -- Last Week: 2 | Jealous of how svelte Marc Gasol looks every time I turn on the TV! He's slimmed his way right into the heart of the MVP race ... if we're allowed to discuss such things before Thanksgiving. Playing the grit-grindy D they always play, with this Gasol and a reborn Courtney Lee, Memphis is a major threat. | |
| 3 |  | 5 Last Week: 8 | Since the Rudy Gay trade, Toronto sports the East's best record at 52-24, which is 4½ games better than Chicago's 48-29. The committee (of one) is starting to get its hopes up, in other words, that our long-awaited return to T-Dot for the first time since 2007 won't have to wait until All-Star Weekend in 2016. | |
| 4 |  | -- Last Week: 4 | Kawhi is looking more like Kawhi. San Antonio looked awfully Spurs-like in the only game of the week that really mattered. The only legit area of concern for the champs is Tiago Splitter's ongoing health issues. They'll need him in the playoffs no matter how good the D looks statistically without him. | |
| 5 |  | -- Last Week: 5 | No team in the West has played fewer road games to date than the Blazers' four, so a travel-heavy December should tell us a lot. Yet it's tough to nitpick Portland too much when it sports the league's longest active win streak as well as a top-seven defense to complement its top-three offense. | |
| 6 |  | 5 Last Week: 1 | Confession time: Probably should have just left Golden State at No. 1 last Monday. Probably put too much weight on the fact Houston was unbeaten with Dwight Howard in the lineup this time last week and wound up hexing the Rockets, and Howard himself, as much as we've hexed anyone lately. | |
| 7 |  | 3 Last Week: 10 | As explosive as the Mavs have been most nights with that otherworldy offense, they're making a habit of losing in excruciating fashion. The worst of the lot was undoubtedly Saturday night's Parsons Bowl, rallying from 18 down against the Dwight-less Rockets and then throwing it away at the end. | |
| 8 |  | 1 Last Week: 9 | The Paul Pierce Effect? It'd be foolish to think Pierce is going to hound LeBron James into 1-for-8 shooting every time they cross paths, but the results of Friday's encounter would suggest Pierce has more to offer as the Wizards' successor to the snug-fitting Trevor Ariza than mere veteran wisdom. | |
| 9 |  | 2 Last Week: 7 | Don't blame Derrick Rose one bit for sitting out Friday night. How on earth does the schedule computer spit out a Bulls stop in Portland -- Chicago's only visit to Rip City all season -- almost one year to the day of his season-ending injury on the Blazers' floor Nov. 22, 2013? Not cool. Not at all. | |
| 10 |  | 1 Last Week: 11 | As much as the Clips cringe when we obsess about Lob City, it's impossible to ignore that the best they've looked so far was the visit to Miami featuring six alley-oops for the TNT cameras on the second night of a back-to-back. We saw only six oops from them in their five previous games combined. | |
| 11 |  | 2 Last Week: 13 | Tuesday brings us a second Anthony Davis/DeMarcus Cousins duel in the space of a week to (A) reunite the Team USA duo and (B) convene two of the five best players in the league as we speak. Seriously: How do you choose between AD, Boogie and Marc Gasol for West Player of the Month? | |
| 12 |  | 2 Last Week: 14 | They're catching no one by surprise this season. And concerns about the viability of carrying three PGs who all want to start don't just vanish. But kudos to the Suns for taking full advantage of a road trip that served up four straight Eastern Conference stragglers by winning all four games. | |
| 13 |  | 1 Last Week: 12 | DeMarcus Cousins has only two technical fouls, and he's leading the league in rebounding and has fared fairly well against Marc Gasol, Joakim Noah and, yes, Anthony Davis. Someone please tell me again how you're supposed to choose between Boogie, Davis and Gasol for Player of the Month out West? | |
| 14 |  | 1 Last Week: 15 | Erik Spoelstra responded to losing D-Wade to hamstring trouble by installing Mario Chalmers as his new starting shooting guard. And Chalmers' better-than-expected response to the show of confidence gave Chris Bosh some much-needed help that enabled the Heat to scratch out a 3-1 week. | |
| 15 |  | 9 Last Week: 6 | No LeBron James team has sported a record this poor after 12 games since his rookie-year Cavs sat at 4-8. And no team outside the top 10 in defensive efficiency has won it all since the No. 18 Lakers in 2000-01. So with these Cavs at 5-7 and at No. 26 in DE, good luck preaching patience and calm. | |
| 16 |  | 1 Last Week: 17 | At what point do we start talking about the young Bucks as a playoff dark horse? Not saying we're there yet. Especially not after a rough weekend. Just asking: How long do we wait before we legitimately start asking if Jason Kidd's kids, with all that length all over the floor, can snag the No. 8 seed? | |
| 17 |  | 10 Last Week: 27 | This withering look at what's been happening in Denver since Masai Ujiri and George Karl left has presumably scuttled any hopes of our own Kevin Arnovitz scoring an invite to the Nuggets' holiday party. Yet we should note they're 4-0, with rollicking wins over the Cavs and Pels, since publication. | |
| 18 |  | 7 Last Week: 25 | Friday night's epic comeback from 23 points down in Charlotte hiked the Magic's record to a sneaky-good 6-1 against foes with losing records. The 0-8 mark against clubs with winning records doesn't sound so great, obviously, but I'd say Team Vucevic has hung in OK given all the injuries already. | |
| 19 |  | 3 Last Week: 16 | Pardon us if we don't agree with the rising notion that the Leastern Conference is exceeding expectations. The Hawks are a No. 5 seed on this Monday with the league's 24th-ranked defense and an average scoring margin of minus-0.3. Ten teams in the West have an average point margin in the green. | |
| 20 |  | 2 Last Week: 18 | No starting five got more PT together last season than Indy's Paul George, David West, Roy Hibbert, Lance Stephenson and George Hill. Cue the what-a-difference-a-year-makes music, because its most common starting five so far is Donald Sloan, Solomon Hill, Chris Copeland, Luis Scola and Hibbert. | |
| 21 |  | -- Last Week: 21 | The Nets are 0-6 against .500-or-better teams. Mason Plumlee has joined Brook Lopez on the list of high-profile bigs struggling to win over new coach Lionel Hollins. And the worst start in NBA history -- 0-18 in 2009-10 -- will still be theirs if Philly somehow finds a way to win one of its next six games. | |
| 22 |  | 2 Last Week: 20 | Disconcerting as it is to see Trey Burke, even after that game winner at Madison Square Garden, mired at 34.6 percent from the field, one look at Gordon Hayward's stat line since getting that four-year max contract has to lift Jazz spirits: 19.1 PPG, 5.6 RPG, 4.3 APG and a robust PER of 22.45. | |
| 23 |  | 1 Last Week: 22 | Marcus Smart is nearing his return from that scary injury, Rajon Rondo has already posted a triple-double along with two near misses and a brutal November schedule that still features home dates with Chicago and San Antonio is almost over. So we'll ignore (for now) where the Celts rank on D. | |
| 24 |  | 5 Last Week: 19 | In your Biggest November Disappointment standings, Charlotte continues to be Cleveland's foremost rival. It was agony at every turn last week, starting with a 27-point home loss to Dallas and lowlighted by a 23-point blown lead to visiting Orlando on top of the road heartbreakers at Indy and Miami. | |
| 25 |  | 1 Last Week: 24 | We're (selfishly) thrilled one of the committee's faves has returned to health in time for Wednesday's reunion game in Dallas. How much of a difference Jose Calderon realistically makes, however, remains to be seen ... with expectations for the Spaniard's impact, in true NYC style, predictably out of whack. | |
| 26 |  | 3 Last Week: 23 | Only four teams over the past 20 seasons have started 3-12 and rallied to reach the postseason ... three of them from the East. And if you believe that this season's No. 8 seed has to match the 49 wins achieved by Dallas last season, OKC needs to go (gulp) 46-21 from here on out after a six-game skid. | |
| 27 |  | 2 Last Week: 29 | The NBA's worst defensive efficiency reading over the last 30 seasons belongs to the '92-93 Dallas Mavericks, who surrendered 112.5 points per 100 possessions en route to a record of 11-71. It's a mark these Lakers are on pace to shatter with the 114.4 per 100 possessions they're allowing so far. | |
| 28 |  | -- Last Week: 28 | No Rubio. No Pekovic. And now no Kevin Martin. So there's no reason for the Wolves to focus on anything other than letting Andrew Wiggins go to make the most of a bad situation ... just as they did in Saturday night's home loss to Sacramento that saw the rook ring up a career-high 29 points. | |
| 29 |  | 3 Last Week: 26 | Not even your lefties-obsessed committee (of one) can focus on Greg Monroe's free-agent drive. Or Brandon Jennings' PER renaissance. Or Josh Smith's struggles in an SVG world. The story continues to be Andre Drummond's 11.6 PER and .397 field-goal percentage ... after last season's .623. | |
| 30 |  | -- Last Week: 30 | MCW's return and flashes of promise from Nerlens Noel can't mask the fact that Philly is just the second franchise in NBA history, along with the Clippers, to start 0-13 in two separate seasons. The Sixers play five of the next six games at home and have to win one to avoid the worst start ever. | |
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