Power Rankings: Spurs making news
Week: Team:
The San Antonio Spurs are the latest team of the week in the NBA. Literally and even more so figuratively.
Which is how San Antonio managed to nudge just past the Memphis Grizzlies into the top spot in ESPN.com's weekly NBA Power Rankings, bumping the Grizzlies down after two straight Mondays at the top.
By beating Memphis at home Saturday night in overtime -- after its B-team showed off every ounce of the Spurs' depth by nearly topping the Heat in Miami on Thursday night in a game unforgettable for 250,000 reasons -- San Antonio moved to the summit for the second time this season.
Memphis supporters might find that a bit harsh, given that the Grizzlies were on the second night of a back-to-back and still look good in so many categories that matter after the season's opening month, but the NBA's silver and black swayed the committee (of one) because -- even without injured wing men Kawhi Leonard and Stephen Jackson -- they just keep winning.
The toughest job for the committee continues to be filling out the next five slots beneath the top six or seven every week, with Milwaukee making yet another rise (with an asterisk) into the top 10 thanks as much to the stumbles of Denver, Atlanta and the Los Angeles Lakers as the Bucks' own prowess. No. 9 Chicago and No. 11 Golden State, one of November's biggest surprises, have also capitalized on that void.
The rankings are compiled with ever-helpful dishing from ESPN Stats & Information and the Elias Sports Bureau. Click here to rank the teams yourself.
Also, check out John Hollinger's daily Power Rankings.
| 2012-13 Power Rankings: Week 5 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 |  | 1 Last Week: 2 | For maybe the first time in the Popovich/Duncan era, San Antonio might actually have the support of late-season NBA neutrals. All this drama is bound to have folks rooting for the Spurs like never before when their team bows out ... just to see David Stern have to hand Pop the trophy. | |
| 2 |  | 1 Last Week: 1 | The Spurs put themselves in position to be stuck with a mammoth $250,000 fine at least partly to make sure all of their key players were as rested as possible for a home game 48 hours later against the Memphis Grizzlies. Don't know that the Grizz will receive a higher compliment all season. | |
| 3 |  | -- Last Week: 3 | One of the factors we can only presume prompted Gregg Popovich to do what he did Thursday night: San Antonio's visit to Miami, which happened to be the Spurs' fourth game in five nights on the road, was only the third of four games that the ultra-rested Heat had to play in a 16-day span. | |
| 4 |  | -- Last Week: 4 | They'll never be known for their ball movement, but the Thunder have clearly been sharing the leather better than they did last season. They also enter the season's second month as a top-five team in offensive and defensive efficiency, which explains why they're rollin' without Harden. | |
| 5 |  | -- Last Week: 5 | PT is always a concern with the league's deepest team. Jamal Crawford's production has indeed cooled. And Blake Griffin hasn't been getting much air time lately beyond those Kia commercials. But with Chauncey Billups back, order seems to have been restored to Clipperland. We'll see. | |
| 6 |  | 3 Last Week: 9 | The Nets just posted their first 10-win November since the second of their back-to-back trips to the NBA Finals in 2002-03. Our dilemma: Focus on the steadily improving D and Jerry Stackhouse's renaissance? Or the slumping (Joe Johnson/Gerald Wallace) and ailing (D-Will and Brook Lopez)? | |
| 7 |  | 1 Last Week: 6 | A win in Milwaukee is a good win these days, but the Knicks wouldn't dare suggest that they're all the way back to their early-November best in terms of swarming D and draining 3s. Not with 39-year-old Glue of the Operation Jason Kidd ailing and Raymond Felton dealing a bruised hand. | |
| 8 |  | 5 Last Week: 13 | You'd think Larry Sanders Show references would have been a committee staple by now. It's long overdue, obviously, but the best part is that it's not even a reach after what Sanders just did, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the only Buck ever with a points/rebounds/blocks triple-double. | |
| 9 |  | 3 Last Week: 12 | More and more you hear suggestions that the offensively challenged Bulls have enough D to snag the No. 4 seed in the East sans Derrick Rose, then make a playoff run because D-Rose will surely be healthy enough to do damage come April. As wide open as the Central looks ... maybe. | |
| 10 |  | 3 Last Week: 7 | The Hawks moved up to a lofty No. 7, in spite of a mostly soft schedule, because of their stingy D and one quality W over the Clips. They slide back down now because the schedule delivered another inviting week that the Hawks squandered by splitting at home against Charlotte and Cleveland. | |
| 11 |  | 3 Last Week: 14 | Who knew? Who knew that the Andrew Bogut saga would get so drawn out and messy? Who knew, furthermore, that the Dubs could win 10 games this quickly on the strength of big improvements defensively -- and especially on the boards -- when those are two of Bogut's specialties? | |
| 12 |  | 4 Last Week: 8 | Forty points in the fourth for Orlando? Five home losses already with a cushy schedule? Steve Nash can change the flow of the offense. He can lift spirits, too. But he's not going to help the defense one bit, which is where the Lakers looked truly awful in Sunday's fourth-quarter collapse. | |
| 13 |  | 3 Last Week: 10 | When Pop publicly brands the Spurs as "soft," they usually respond. Doc Rivers went there after the scrap that got Rajon Rondo suspended ... only for the Rondo-less Celts to fall apart in Milwaukee after jumping out to a 17-zip lead. Another uh-oh: Paul Pierce is shooting .418 from the field. | |
| 14 |  | 3 Last Week: 11 | We're about to test whether everything really happens in no less than threes for the Nuggets. They started 0-3, won the next four, dropped three more in a row, answered again with four straight Ws and now lug a three-game skid into a Toronto home date followed by a four-game East swing. | |
| 15 |  | 2 Last Week: 17 | Might be on to something: James Harden averages 29.4 ppg on .528 shooting in Houston's wins ... and 18.9 ppg on .318 shooting in losses. Should also point out: Chandler Parsons, Patrick Patterson and Omer Asik are all exceeding expectations while most of us fixate on Harden and Jeremy Lin. | |
| 16 |  | -- Last Week: 16 | While true there's little chance of a Monday passing without seeing the Andrew Bynum saga mentioned in this cyberspace, we can't ignore that Philly has served up a couple of positive surprises. Jrue Holiday playing like an All-Star is one. Topping 100 points in five of six games is another. | |
| 17 |  | 3 Last Week: 14 | Al Jefferson continues to be the most efficient member of Utah's deep frontcourt after playing through a recent ankle sprain. He leads one of the NBA's three remaining unbeaten teams at home (with Miami and New York) into a welcome stretch of three in a row in SLC after a road-heavy start. | |
| 18 |  | 2 Last Week: 20 | Have we been too hard on these guys when they had to start the season with 12 of the first 18 games on the road ... all without Danny Granger? Don't think so. Not when the Pacers have already played Washington, Toronto and Sacramento twice each as well as Charlotte and New Orleans. | |
| 19 |  | 3 Last Week: 22 | Sounds like the whispers about Ricky Rubio coming back by Christmas are true given the fact he's already back on the practice floor. I'm thus inclined to tempt fate and say 'Sota, right around .500 after all the injuries and with Kevin Love already back, has seen the worst of the storm. | |
| 20 |  | 5 Last Week: 25 | The Magic would naturally be thrilled if Sunday night's events at Staples Center plunged the Lakers into some sort of lasting crisis. Yet even if the misery doesn't last, Central Floridians won't soon forget the night that Orlando not only beat Dwight's new crew but exposed his every flaw. | |
| 21 | Charlotte 7-8 | 3 Last Week: 18 | Don't bother telling me how weak their schedule has been or how lucky they were to win those close games against teams missing the likes of Granger, Nowitzki, Wall and Love. I know I had 'em too high. So what? How ever Charlotte got to 7-5 so soon after 7-59, let 'em enjoy the moment. | |
| 22 |  | 3 Last Week: 19 | The Mavs, for all their rotation uncertainty, did manage to scrape through November minus Dirk Nowitzki in passable fashion. The schedule, though, was one of the league's five most favorable and now gets much tougher. With no firm word how much longer they'll have to do without Dirk. | |
| 23 |  | -- Last Week: 23 | For all the fretting generated by LaMarcus Aldridge's so-so opening month, Portland's utterly anemic bench and the 0-4 start on this seven-game trip, Damian Lillard's continued success and the resurrection of J.J. Hickson is shielding the Pacific Northwest from full-on gloom. Isn't it? | |
| 24 |  | 2 Last Week: 26 | The Pistons remain thoroughly uncompetitive on the road, but let's cut 'em some slack. Over the line as the recent locker-room grumbling about Lawrence Frank was, at least Frank's players didn't wait until sinking to 4-20 to get going this time. Detroit is suddenly a decent 5-5 since starting 0-8. | |
| 25 |  | 3 Last Week: 28 | The Cavs are clearly trying to get the committee to relocate with Maccabi Tel Aviv alumnus Jeremy Pargo starting and Maccabi legend Omri Casspi back in favor. Legit Cavs lovers, though, are surely down now with poor Andy Varejao missing Dion Waiters (ankle) and Kyrie Irving (finger). | |
| 26 |  | 1 Last Week: 27 | Five straight road games to go in this rough opening quarter of the schedule that called for 15 of the first 22 games to be played away. Not sure if this is small (or zero) consolation for the injury-hit, hard-luck Raps, but they've at least convinced Tony Parker their record is "very misleading." | |
| 27 |  | 4 Last Week: 23 | There are only three guards out there averaging at least 15 points, six assists and two steals: Chris Paul, Brandon Jennings and, yes, Goran Dragic. Something tells me, though, that Planet Orange is going to need a bigger crumb than that one to sustain itself after Detroit 117, Phoenix 77. | |
| 28 | New Orleans 4-11 | 1 Last Week: 29 | Greivis Passquez is still diming it up. That's the good news. The bad news? Impressive as that win was in L.A. over the Clips mere hours after last week's rankings hit cyberspace, Anthony Davis is still hobbling, Austin Rivers is still struggling and Eric Gordon is still, uh, rehabbing in seclusion. | |
| 29 |  | 2 Last Week: 27 | Worst in the West? That's the label Sacramento has five months left to shed in a season when hope is already fading fast despite Tyreke Evans' recent revival. Barring an unlikely turnaround, GM Geoff Petrie is facing his seventh straight season in the lottery. With five coaches in that span. | |
| 30 |  | -- Last Week: 30 | Now that they've avoided matching the worst start (0-18) in league history, there's a new target for the Wiz. Only two teams out there are still winless on the road: Washington (0-7) and Sacramento (0-6). And before the Kings start a four-game trip, Washington visits Atlanta on Friday. | |
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