Power Rankings: Bulls take over No. 1 spot
Week: Team:
A home loss to New Jersey and the five-game injury absence of Derrick Rose before the All-Star Game conspired to drop the Chicago Bulls all the way down to No. 5 in ESPN.com's weekly NBA Power Rankings.
But that was then.
A blip.
With Rose back in the lineup and quality road wins in San Antonio and Philadelphia -- and with the Miami Heat's back-to-back losses for just the second time this season in weekend roadies against the Jazz and Lakers without Chris Bosh -- Chicago has reclaimed our No. 1 ranking, nudging Miami down to No. 2 following five straight weeks at the top for the Heat.
The Lakers (up one spot to move into the top five for the first time all season), Memphis' rise from No. 12 to No. 8 without the injured Zach Randolph and Minnesota's edging into the top 10 after big road wins over the Clippers and Blazers are the other notable moves from the first week of the season's second half ... unless you count slumping Portland's slide from No. 14 to No. 20.
Click here every Monday during the regular season for the latest fresh and nonautomated pulse-take of the league's 30 teams, which is compiled with Ricky Rubio-esque dishing from ESPN Stats & Information and the Elias Sports Bureau. Click here to rank the teams yourself, or click here to comment on these rankings.
Also, check out John Hollinger's daily power rankings.
| 2011-12 Power Rankings: Week 10 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 |  | 3 Last Week: 4 | Big win in San Antonio to start the second half. Six straight wins overall. Best average nightly point differential (+9.4 ppg) in the league. And Derrick Rose is back in full flow after that five-game shelving to get his back right. Put it all together and the Bulls are safely back up in the stratosphere where they belong. | |
| 2 |  | 1 Last Week: 1 | Harsh as some of the LeBron heat might seem when he's on pace to register the best single-season PER (33.14) ever, it's not just press-row wretches that keep harping on him for not taking the last shot. All the ex-pros on TV seem to feel the same way, which presumably tells you how fellow players see it. | |
| 3 |  | 1 Last Week: 2 | Perhaps we made his All-Star Weekend scoring outburst sound a little too inevitable. Before Durant's MVP-clinching 36 points, then his 38 on Thursday night to power OKC's come-from-behind win over the Magic on TNT, KD averaged just 15.3 ppg on 31.8 percent shooting in four previous games in Orlando. | |
| 4 |  | 1 Last Week: 3 | They could probably rationalize the Chicago loss, given the quality of the opposition, but losing at home to the short-handed Nuggets on a night that (A) Manu made his return and (B) Denver lost yet another big man (Mozgov) to injury? The Spurs might need another Rodeo Road Trip to get back on track. | |
| 5 |  | 1 Last Week: 6 | Kobe might have to keep that mask on no matter how much sweat it disgustingly keeps pouring down his throat. The Lakers scored 100-plus points in the first two games he wore it, then went for 93 against mighty Miami ... which is close enough. Don't forget that they topped 100 points only five times before the break. | |
| 6 |  | 3 Last Week: 9 | After capitalizing on a soft schedule for six straight Ws and an edge in the race for the East's No. 3 seed, Indy goes to Chicago to see the Bulls for the first time since the Pacers' postgame celebrations on Jan. 25 so angered our No. 1. Sidebar: With one more road win, Indy matches last season's total of 13. | |
| 7 |  | 2 Last Week: 5 | The Clippers lead the Pacific Division! Remember how often you heard that line throughout the first half of the season? Without Sunday's overtime win over Houston, CP3 and Blake suddenly would have been looking up at the Lakers, thanks to a pretty pedestrian 7-6 record since Chauncey Billups went down. | |
| 8 |  | 4 Last Week: 12 | Got wind of a Twitter campaign that started Saturday night seeking support for Lionel Hollins to get some Coach of the Year consideration. Not the most outlandish campaign in the Twitterverse when you consider that the Grizz are suddenly 21-12 without Z-Bo ... and 11-0 when they score 100 points. | |
| 9 |  | 2 Last Week: 11 | Lost amid the justified hoopla surrounding K-Love's 42-point eruption in Portland and road wins over the Clips and Blazers to further legitimize their bid to sneak into the playoffs: Martell Webster's big bounce-back game at both ends against the highly touted Nicolas Batum after that infamous dunk. | |
| 10 |  | 2 Last Week: 8 | If you believe the GM grapevine: After an 11-4 February, Orlando is serious about rolling the dice and keeping Dwight past the trading deadline, figuring that a 10 percent chance of changing his mind (but also potentially losing him for nothing in free agency) beats what they can get in a trade for him. | |
| 11 |  | 4 Last Week: 7 | Mark Cuban sat up on a big stage at the Sloan Sports Conference in Boston and insisted that no regular season will tell us less about the playoffs than this one. He can only hope that's the case given how Dallas, amid all the Odom chaos, started its worst schedule stretch (nine games in 12) on the 2011-12 calendar. | |
| 12 |  | 5 Last Week: 17 | Maybe they did need the All-Star break more than any team west of Philadelphia, but the Nuggets have certainly responded. Weekend road wins in Houston and San Antonio add up to a big step back toward their 14-5 form, with the bonus of knowing that Gallo and Nene should be back this week. | |
| 13 |  | -- Last Week: 13 | The Sixers have held their last nine opponents to 88.7 ppg on 41.5 percent shooting. They've been outscored by a single, solitary point in that stretch. And yet they've lost seven of those nine games, continuing to suffer without the injured Spencer Hawes and from their lack of even one steady shot-creator. | |
| 14 |  | 4 Last Week: 10 | The Rockets were feeling good about themselves as recently as Wednesday, at a season-high seven games over .500. Then came their three most dispiriting Ls of the season: a 21-point rout in Utah, then the home surrender of 117 points to Denver, then Sunday's OT defeat to the Clips. | |
| 15 |  | 3 Last Week: 18 | There are two ways to look at that ridiculous Rondo stat line that I was lucky enough to witness in person: (1) Trading someone with that sort of stat-stuffing ability is pure lunacy; (2) The fact that Boston is even pondering the prospect of trading Rondo tells you what a, um, challenge managing him must be. | |
| 16 |  | 1 Last Week: 15 | Not totally sure I can get away with saying this after Rondo abused them at Sunday brunch, but here goes: Still think the Knicks, at playoff time, can be the East's most dangerous team outside of the Miami-Chicago duopoly. At the very least you must agree no team in the East has more in-season room to improve. | |
| 17 |  | 3 Last Week: 20 | The justifiable euphoria generated by a one-point win over mighty Miami, with the winning margin coming from a three-point play from the forgotten Devin Harris, has to be tempered by the fact that Utah's subsequent loss in Dallas was its sixth straight on the road. Or maybe it doesn't. You tell us, Utahns. | |
| 18 |  | 2 Last Week: 16 | Josh Smith sure seems to enjoy being the focal point of the offense while Joe Johnson's sore knee heals and Al Horford dreams of an April return. The Hawks badly needed their Josh-led sweep of a back-to-back against Milwaukee and scorching OKC after dropping five of their previous seven at home. | |
| 19 |  | 3 Last Week: 22 | Five wins out of six? Three wins in a row despite trailing by double digits? A few nostalgic forays into 100-point territory? We wouldn't insult you by trying to sell any "Suns are playing too well to trade Nash" talk, but they might as well try to make the playoffs if management is as determined as it is to keep him. | |
| 20 |  | 6 Last Week: 14 | Don't see the Blazers firing Nate McMillan without a full-time GM in place because then Paul Allen has to take all the heat for what would likely go down as an unpopular decision. It's more likely that Portland focuses on trades to shake things up, shopping Ray Felton, Jamal Crawford and ... stay tuned. | |
| 21 |  | 2 Last Week: 19 | I understand that Steph Curry is out (again) with more foot trouble, but 78 points in Indy? A mere 75 points in Toronto ... including a 28-point second half? The All-Star break apparently came at the wrong time for the Warriors, snuffing out their first semblance of momentum in the Mark Jackson era. | |
| 22 | New Jersey 12-26 | 3 Last Week: 25 | The fact that they needed 57 points from D-Will -- to go with his 50-point game for Besiktas in November -- to beat the Bobcats doesn't trouble the Nets nearly as much as the fears that Brook Lopez has suffered another bad foot injury. The same Brook Lopez who rumbled for 66 points against Dallas and Boston. | |
| 23 | New Orleans 9-28 | 1 Last Week: 24 | If anyone compiled Rasheed Wallace-inspired rankings for Playing Hard, New Orleans would be pushing for a top-10 slot. The Hornets are up to five wins against .500-or-better teams after surprising Dallas, and they boast a livable 4-9 mark against sub-.500 teams, considering all the injuries (Gordon, Okafor, Landry, etc.). | |
| 24 |  | 3 Last Week: 21 | The deep, dark secret of Cleveland's season is that as much as they want Kyrie to flourish and develop the way he has, management won't be crushed to have another high pick in June. Which is the sort of thinking that is surely nursing the Cavs through their first five-game skid of the 2011-12 campaign. | |
| 25 |  | 1 Last Week: 26 | Can't quite put it on a par with the news about the new arena that will keep the Kings in Sactown, but the earnest manner in which Boogie Cousins told my man Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe about wanting to stay with the Kings and consulting Chris Webber as a mentor were undeniably promising. | |
| 26 |  | 3 Last Week: 23 | Pardon them if it seems as if the Pistons are struggling to cope with the fact that February is a memory. That was their first winning month (8-6) since December 2008 ... with Brandon Knight becoming the first Detroit rookie to average 14.0 ppg for an entire month since (gulp) Grant Hill in 1994-95. | |
| 27 |  | 1 Last Week: 28 | The Raps were offensively challenged with Andrea Bargnani and are on-their-knees grateful when they get to 90 points without him. Yet they've actually proved that they can consistently beat their own kind with their improved D under Dwane Casey, posting a 10-8 record against sub-.500 teams. | |
| 28 |  | 1 Last Week: 27 | The games themselves have become such hard work without the injured Andrew Bogut -- as evidenced by the 119 points that the Bucks needed to beat Washington (by one) -- that we're only watching now to see if the Bucks can conjure up an unlikely trade solution to solve their Stephen Jackson problem. | |
| 29 |  | -- Last Week: 29 | The recent benchings of Young and McGee, as well as Wittman's proclamation that he's "done with young guys," inevitably makes you wonder if JaVale is more available than he's ever been. The scarcity of big men out there would still stop me from trading him, but rest assured that the Wiz are getting that question. | |
| 30 | Charlotte 4-31 | -- Last Week: 30 | If you plugged the Bobcats into the NCAA tournament, how many rounds would they go? Better question: Is there a committee on Earth that would plug the Bobcats into the tourney? Best question: Can they avoid the worst single-season average point differential (Dallas' minus-15.2 ppg in 1992-93) since 1970-71? | |
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