Power Rankings: Chicago Bulls rise to No. 1
Week: Team:
Martin Luther King Jr. Day has arrived in the NBA with 11 games on the schedule and a big shuffle at the top of ESPN.com's weekly NBA Power Rankings, with Chicago emerging as our new No. 1 and a relatively steep drop for the team that the Bulls have bumped off.
The combination of three straight defeats on the road and worrisome health issues for Dwyane Wade has dropped the Miami Heat four slots to No. 5, enabling Oklahoma City to climb to No. 2 and two more teams that weren't forecasted to be this high -- Philadelphia (No. 7 to No. 3) and San Antonio (No. 9 to No. 4 despite losing Manu Ginobili to a broken hand) -- to move ahead of the reigning East champs.
The Los Angeles Clippers (No. 10 to No. 6), Dallas Mavericks (No. 13 to No. 10) and Utah Jazz (No. 18 to No. 14) also made notable moves upward this week, while Atlanta (after losing Al Horford to a potentially season-ending injury) and Portland (4-5 since a 3-0 start) tumbled out of the top 10.
Check back every Monday during the regular season for a fresh and fully 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 3 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 |  | 1 Last Week: 2 | Of the many reasons they're up here now: The Bulls have played five games at home, and in precisely none of those five did the visitors manage to score 75 points. As long as D-Rose's toe troubles don't linger, they'll be hard to dislodge from this perch. | |
| 2 |  | 1 Last Week: 3 | Anyone out there worried that Durant doesn't have a 30-point game yet in 2012? Please. The overriding concern in OKC, if there is one, is figuring out whether they really can get by for a whole season without the quiet composure they get from Eric Maynor. | |
| 3 |  | 4 Last Week: 7 | Which launch surprised you more? When the Sixers alarmingly started 3-13 last season under Doug Collins? Or that these Sixers have the best scoring margin in the league (plus-15.2) by nearly five points over Chicago? Think we'll go with the latter. | |
| 4 |  | 5 Last Week: 9 | Let us be the first to point out (kidding!) how glad San Antonio must be that it didn't amnesty Richard Jefferson ... especially with Manu suddenly sidelined. RJ is shooting 50.7 percent from deep as one of only seven players in the league making half his 3s. | |
| 5 |  | 4 Last Week: 1 | Three straight losses and a fresh rash of late-game failings were bad enough. But three separate leg injuries plaguing D-Wade -- with the Spurs, Lakers and Sixers next up on the schedule -- must worry Miami far more than anything that happened on the road. | |
| 6 |  | 4 Last Week: 10 | With four quality wins already in a 5-1 start to January and no grave concern (yet) about CP3's hammy, my big question is this: How can the Clips have already turned cold on the Lob City nickname? Especially when Blake is the one who conceived it? | |
| 7 |  | 1 Last Week: 8 | Even as you wonder how much it's taking out of him or what it means long-term for the Lakers' offense, how can you not get caught up in Kobe's run of 40-point games? It's the sixth time he's gone for 40 in four straight outings. MJ did that only twice. | |
| 8 |  | 4 Last Week: 4 | They've thumped Dallas in Dallas and rung up 117 points on Miami as recently as Friday night ... but the Nuggets could be sporting an 8-0 record at home if they hadn't lost to New Orleans and Utah in games George Karl says they took too lightly. | |
| 9 |  | 2 Last Week: 11 | Don't think you'll be hearing Pacer People outwardly clamoring to see the Celts in the opening round of the playoffs, but the early home-and-road wins over Boston do have Indy quietly believing that the idea of a top-four finish in the East is not so unreasonable. | |
| 10 |  | 3 Last Week: 13 | Doesn't matter how much the schedule has helped. Hold eight teams under 90 points in a span of 10 games without Tyson Chandler while keeping Dirk's PT down? That's progress for the champs, who apparently got a lot out of that White House visit. | |
| 11 |  | 1 Last Week: 12 | Wednesday's win in Portland was Orlando's first W of significance in a start that has to be graded on a curve. Before you buy into the idea that things are settling down in the Magic Kingdom, bear in mind that the composite record of its eight victims is 31-69. | |
| 12 |  | 6 Last Week: 6 | A shame it happened so soon after those big wins over Miami and Chicago, but there's no getting around it: Atlanta just lost the guy on the roster closest to irreplaceable, because Al Horford ranks not only as its best big man but also its smartest player. | |
| 13 |  | 8 Last Week: 5 | The Blazers have looked tired more than once lately, which figured to be less of an issue for them because of their depth. They're also still looking for offensive consistency, scoring better than 105 points per game at home but just 89.3 ppg on the road. | |
| 14 |  | 4 Last Week: 18 | Favorable early schedule or not, no one had this Jazz winning seven of eight in any stretch this season ... or getting this much out of Big Al and Millsap. But that's what they've done in 2012. As Raja Bell says: "8-4 is 8-4. You can't argue with that." | |
| 15 |  | 1 Last Week: 16 | Last week was a biggie for the Rockets: road win No. 1 after an 0-5 start with a breakthrough in Charlotte, followed by an OT win over Portland to offset an OT heartbreaker in San Antonio ... and more of the Kyle Lowry Show from the early MIP pace-setter. | |
| 16 |  | 1 Last Week: 17 | Baron is likely still out until the end of the month, Melo has a bad ankle and Amare isn't quite right, either. After five seasons in a row averaging better than 20 ppg and shooting at least 50 percent from the floor, STAT's at 18.7 ppg on 41.4 percent shooting so far. | |
| 17 |  | 3 Last Week: 20 | One source of encouragement while waiting for Z-Bo to heal and as they face the team that beat them by 40 in Chicago: Marc Gasol has responded to his fat new contract with eight straight double-digit rebound games -- the longest such streak of his career. | |
| 18 |  | 3 Last Week: 15 | Messed it up when I tweeted about it, but Ricky Rubio is continuing the glorious tradition of a rookie's delicious passing helping us get over a long lockout and how it cut into the schedule. It was J-Will in 1999 and Slick Rick -- now a starter -- in 2012. | |
| 19 |  | 3 Last Week: 22 | How many times have you watched that clip of Kyrie weaving, spinning and behind-the-backing through the Phoenix D? He's up to four straight 20-point games on that l-o-n-g swing through the West and shooting 51 percent from the floor in January. | |
| 20 |  | 6 Last Week: 14 | I think we can all agree whose fault this isn't so far. Ray Allen might have come back down to Earth in the Celts' past couple of games, but you marvel at the way he's still setting the standard when it comes to shooting from deep -- 57.7 percent -- at 36. | |
| 21 |  | 3 Last Week: 24 | Steph Curry's ankle woes didn't allow the Dubs to enjoy much of a honeymoon after beating Chicago on the day after Christmas. And it happened again last week after the OT win over Miami, when they lost Kwame to a shoulder injury ... then lost in Charlotte. | |
| 22 |  | 4 Last Week: 26 | The Bucks aren't the only team in the NBA with a spotless record at home (4-0) and still waiting for their first win on the road (0-7). Somehow, though, I don't think you'll find many folks who would otherwise lob these guys into the same sentence with San Antonio. | |
| 23 |  | 4 Last Week: 19 | He's over 30 mpg now, but for a minute there, Nash was topping 10 apg in less than 30 mpg. John Lucas is the only player to do that for a full season in 1983-84 ... and Nash briefly gave us something to distract us from the Suns' dreary present. | |
| 24 |  | 3 Last Week: 21 | The Raps knew they'd have trouble scoring, especially when Bargnani is out, but they haven't reached triple digits since opening night in Cleveland. The consolation: Dwane Casey has them at a passable No. 15 in defensive efficiency, allowing 99.8 ppg per 100 possessions. | |
| 25 | New Orleans 3-9 | 2 Last Week: 27 | Anyone else get the feeling that winning in Denver on the same night LSU took a BCS title game pounding from Alabama might be as good as it gets for the Hornets? They're still playing hard for Monty Williams, but they just don't have the manpower post-CP3. | |
| 26 | New Jersey 3-10 | 3 Last Week: 29 | Really thought the Nets would be OK in the short term without B-Lopez after signing Hump and Okur. Never thought D-Will would be shooting 36.6 percent from the floor after presumably showing up for camp sharper than anyone thanks to that stint in Turkey. | |
| 27 |  | 1 Last Week: 28 | All the deserved recent raves over Greg Monroe's progress can only provide so much insulation from all the Pistons' lopsided losing lately. As the venerable scribe Sam Smith recently quipped: "They were having mutinies last season and not losing as badly." | |
| 28 | Charlotte 3-10 | 3 Last Week: 25 | The nicest thing you can say about a team that just got throttled at home by the oft-pummeled Pistons: For maybe the first time in his career, D.J. Augustin isn't constantly hearing how much better off Charlotte would be if it had drafted Brook Lopez instead. | |
| 29 |  | 6 Last Week: 23 | The flurry of Cousins' double-doubles since Keith Smart took over can't camouflage what we just saw. Won't soon forget what it was like to watch firsthand as the rudderless Kings made just 22 baskets and shot 25.6 percent in a 99-60 loss at Dallas. | |
| 30 |  | -- Last Week: 30 | Answer: At least a dozen. Question: How many times while attending the D-League Showcase last week did the committee hear some wise guy make the inevitable crack about how the Dakota Wizards are surely better than the Washington Wizards? | |
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