Power Rankings: Grizzlies new No. 1
Week: Team:
We haven't seen a team mow through three straight opponents sporting winning percentages of .750 or better, as the Memphis Grizzlies just did, since the opening month of the 2000-01 season.
And we've never seen the Grizzlies sporting the league's best record this deep into an NBA season.
Two big reasons why you suddenly see the Grizzlies atop ESPN.com's weekly NBA Power Rankings.
The Grizz were already off to a fine start, but consecutive wins last week on the road in Oklahoma City and at home against New York -- after the previous Sunday's dismantling of Miami -- ensured that Memphis made the four-spot jump from No. 5 to No. 1.
The Knicks retained the No. 2 slot largely on the strength of their big comeback at San Antonio when the Spurs were still carrying the No. 1 overall ranking. San Antonio and Miami, meanwhile, are down to No. 4 and No. 5, respectively, thanks not only to Memphis' jump but the rise of the surging Los Angeles Clippers to No. 3. (The Grizzlies, for the record, are the first team since Cleveland in November 2000 to beat three straight .750-or-better teams, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.)
The rankings are compiled with ever-helpful dishing from ESPN Stats & Info and the Elias Sports Bureau. Click here to rank the teams yourself.
| 2012-13 Power Rankings: Week 3 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 |  | 4 Last Week: 5 | Unbeaten in November. Fifteen straight wins at home dating to last season. Victories over the Heat (home), Thunder (road) and Knicks (home) in succession to put the Q in quality win. Trailing only the Knicks (+10.5) and Clippers (+9.3) in per-game point margin (+9.0). Any questions? | |
| 2 |  | -- Last Week: 2 | Fun trivia morsel for your Monday lunch: These Knicks are the first team ever to get outrebounded in every game of a 6-0 start. The skeptics, of course, will point to that as evidence of the fatal flaw that comes with starting Melo at the 4, but 7-1 is not the time for that sort of negativity. | |
| 3 |  | 1 Last Week: 4 | Jamal Crawford is the NBA's biggest All-Star ballot snubee. DeAndre Jordan and Eric Bledsoe have undeniably stepped it up. Even Blake Griffin is shooting a passable .667 on FT's hiked from last season's .521. And the Clips start the week at No. 4 overall in offensive efficiency and No. 2 in DE. | |
| 4 |  | 3 Last Week: 1 | Shredding Denver after their uncharacteristic late capitulation against the Knicks was a nice pick-me-up. The bigger deal for the Spurs, though, was seeing Manu start to look like Manu in that rout of the Nuggets. His bad back wouldn't let it happen against the Knicks and Lakers. | |
| 5 |  | 2 Last Week: 3 | Looks like it's not just LeBron who has been liberated by a ring. Chris Bosh is off to a sensationally efficient start, too, averaging 19.6 ppg on 55.2-percent shooting while playing nearly three fewer mpg than in his first two Heat seasons. Which certainly helps when Wade (foot) is hurting. | |
| 6 |  | -- Last Week: 6 | Kevin Durant's first career triple-double justifiably got all the pub, but the broader story is that OKC's ball movement in general picked up significantly in the two wins against modest opposition (Hornets and Warriors) after a really bad night on the ball-sharing front in the home loss to Memphis. | |
| 7 |  | 3 Last Week: 10 | The party hasn't started quite yet. Not with Steve Nash (leg) potentially out for another week and not with L.A.'s five wins coming against teams that are a combined 17-35 this season. But Mike D'Antoni will be coaching soon enough and Kobe will be greeting him in an absolute Z-O-N-E. | |
| 8 |  | 6 Last Week: 14 | Did our blatant overreaction to a season-starting win in Boston and that audacious one-week catapult to the No. 4 spot inspire B-Jennings and Monta and the unheralded frontcourt combo of Mike Dunleavy and Larry Sanders to the best start in Brewtown in a decade? We'd like to think so. | |
| 9 |  | 3 Last Week: 12 | All the fantasy trade scenarios in the world don't change the fact Josh Smith isn't quite playing up to J-Smoove standards. Too many jumpers, too many missed FTs, not enough of the good stuff. He'll always get extra leeway from the lefty-loving committee (of one), but we need to see more, too. | |
| 10 |  | 1 Last Week: 11 | You have to go back to 1991-92 for the last time someone -- John Stockton was his name -- did what Rajon Rondo is doing now with that sparkly average of 13.1 apg. And you are justifiably curious to wonder how long it'll take for the creaky-so-far Celts to give us something else to discuss. | |
| 11 |  | 4 Last Week: 7 | The Bulls are a shock to the system on so many fronts even after you factor in D-Rose's absence. Only five games scheduled on the shortest Circus Trip we can ever remember? And then four straight Bulls' opponents scoring in triple digits for the first time since pre-Thibodeau in January 2010. | |
| 12 |  | 6 Last Week: 18 | The victims in this five-game winning streak have a composite record of 13-27. The most impressive win of the five came against the Rondo-less Celtics at home. Yet there is some noise coming out of Brooklyn courtesy of some encouraging flashes from an improving (we think) Brook Lopez. | |
| 13 |  | 3 Last Week: 16 | Don't know how often we can count on seeing the Al Jefferson-Paul Millsap-Derrick Favors supersized starting frontcourt trio that Ty Corbin trotted out at Washington, but we can say that fears of a sluggish start for Big Al faded quickly. Six double-doubles in his last eight games took care of that. | |
| 14 |  | 1 Last Week: 13 | The only lasting solace lately in Big D after Dirk Nowitzki revealed that his rehab from knee surgery isn't moving as swiftly as he hoped: O.J. Mayo just became the only Mav besides Nowitzki and the departed Jason Terry since 2002-03 to string together nine straight games with at least 18 points. | |
| 15 |  | 6 Last Week: 9 | On two separate Mondays already this season, Philly has released a fairly gloomy Andrew Bynum update not long after these rankings hit cyberspace. The latest bad-news Bynum bulletin spilled out over the weekend this time and thus drags the Sixers down with the subtlety of a gutter ball. | |
| 16 |  | 5 Last Week: 11 | Did we get it right? Indy over Denver as the league's most disappointing team as we inch toward Thanksgiving? The Nuggets have their own strong case with Danilo Gallinari shooting 21.4 percent from 3-point range, Ty Lawson's so-so start and JaVale McGee's inability to crack the starting lineup. | |
| 17 |  | 3 Last Week: 20 | We break from our usual fixation in this space with either LaMarcus Aldridge or Damian Lillard to share, via Elias, that Nic Batum became only the third player in NBA history to total 30-plus points with five 3s as well as five blocks in that OT win over Houston. He joins Clifford Robinson and Raef LaFrentz. | |
| 18 |  | 1 Last Week: 17 | It has to end someday. That's what you tell yourself after seeing Chase Budinger (knee) and J.J. Barea (foot) join Ricky Rubio (knee) and Kevin Love (hand) in the trainer's room with fresh injuries. Then you hear Brandon Roy, after his promising preseason, needs another knee surgery. No words. | |
| 19 |  | 3 Last Week: 22 | He'll be lucky to finish third in ROY voting, but Harrison Barnes is quickly winning admirers in the Bay Area. When the Dubs want to distract themselves from the wait for Andrew Bogut or the loss of Brandon Rush, they focus on breakthroughs like Barnes' 19 & 13 in a home W over Atlanta. | |
| 20 |  | 5 Last Week: 15 | The Pacers lead the league in defensive efficiency and still rank as the most disappointing team through the season's opening month. Which should give you a clear indication of how ugly their offense looks right now without Danny Granger and with Roy Hibbert still fully in a funk. | |
| 21 | Charlotte 4-4 | 7 Last Week: 28 | The Bobs are 3-0 when Kemba Walker scores at least 20 points and really did just win three in a row. The bonus: Michael Kidd-Gilchrist is off to a promising start, too. So it's no joke to say that even Mike Woodson must concede the lead in the East's Coach of the Month race to Mike Dunlap. | |
| 22 |  | 1 Last Week: 21 | The focus inevitably is going to stay mostly on the ever-swarmed James Harden or Jeremy Lin -- or absentee rookie Royce White for different reasons -- but don't forget about Omer Asik. The 7-footer has five double-doubles already after managing only one in his first two seasons in Chicago. | |
| 23 | New Orleans 3-5 | 4 Last Week: 19 | If you're into monthly awards, you're surely already wondering -- like us -- how the folks in the league office who make Rookie of the Month selections are going to choose between Anthony Davis and Damian Lillard. Davis has only played six games so far, true, but his PER is a no-joke 25.9. | |
| 24 |  | 1 Last Week: 25 | The Raps have dipped into the bottom third in defensive efficiency, Kyle Lowry remains frustratingly sidelined and Andrea Bargnani is shooting 36 percent. The consolation: DeMar DeRozan has played the best ball of his career since getting that extension and Jose Calderon isn't far off. | |
| 25 |  | 2 Last Week: 23 | Going 1-3 in a run of home games against Denver, Chicago and Miami -- with a detour to visit the Lakers stuffed in there -- is honestly one more win than the Suns expected. Ranking as one of two teams with five players averaging in double figures (like Utah) just isn't as fearsome as it sounds. | |
| 26 |  | -- Last Week: 26 | All things considered? Pretty good week in the Magic Kingdom. That 39-point fourth quarter out of nowhere in Detroit halted a five-game skid ... and their case for finding a third team in the Dwight Howard deal so the Magic wouldn't have to take back Andrew Bynum has never been stronger. | |
| 27 |  | 3 Last Week: 30 | Think we can pardon the Pistons for their inability to finish off Orlando when they sandwiched a win at Philly and a home trouncing of Boston around that lost opportunity. Don't forget they also had OKC down in their first game of the week before unraveling in the fourth quarter. Progress. | |
| 28 |  | -- Last Week: 28 | The ledger so far: One suspension each for DeMarcus Cousins and Thomas Robinson, one team meeting over the weekend and five consecutive Ls overall by at least nine points. Making life no easier: Sacramento is shooting (yikes) 29.8 percent from behind the 3-point line as a team. | |
| 29 |  | 2 Last Week: 27 | Weary of hearing about the Cavs' overmatched bench or their bottom-three D or a nightly point differential (-7.0) that also ranks as one of the league's three worst after six straight Ls? Perhaps you'd enjoy this detour look at Kyrie Irving's off-court marketability starring our own Darren Rovell? | |
| 30 |  | 1 Last Week: 29 | With John Wall and Nene sidelined, Jordan Crawford is the leading Wiz scorer ... at 12.4 ppg. Without Wall and the big Brazilian, Washington also just became only the second team of all-time to start 0-7 or worse in back-to-back seasons, just like the Grizzlies in 2001-02 (0-8) and '02-03 (0-13). | |
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