Power Rankings: East elite now league's beasts
Updated: March 21, 2005, 3:03 PM ET
Week: Team:
Note: Every Monday during the regular season, ESPN.com senior NBA writer Marc Stein takes the pulse of the league by ranking all 30 teams. Click here to comment on the rankings.
East is best? Strange as it might seem to see two Eastern Conference residents filling the top two slots in Marc Stein's NBA Power Rankings, it's tough to argue the notion as the final month of the regular season beckons. Miami is the hottest team in the league, and Detroit has been nearly as ruthless since Feb. 1 (apart from a three-game road blip out West last month) to join the Heat in rising above San Antonio and Phoenix. Injury concerns for the Spurs (Tim Duncan's ankle) and Suns (Steve Nash's hamstring) clinched supremacy for the East ... at least for the moment.
| 2004-05 Power Rankings: Week 20 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 |  | 1 Last Week: 2 | First team to win 50 games this season. First team to clinch a playoff berth this season. First team to post two 10-game win streaks this season. In short, no one's hotter. | |
| 2 |  | 3 Last Week: 5 | Prince looks more like a Most Improved Player favorite every day ... and Gar Heard's fortunes as interim coach (3-0 in this fill-in stint compared to 2-4 last time) are improving, too. | |
| 3 |  | 2 Last Week: 1 | Nash says his hamstring is feeling a little better. Better yet, after a nice win at Memphis, Suns are quietly 8-3 since the All-Star break, beating Spurs, Pistons, Sonics, Mavs and Nuggets. | |
| 4 |  | 1 Last Week: 3 | For the seventh straight full season, Spurs have won 50 games. But this group is only 1-3 without Duncan, so expect a longer rest after this ankle twist to ensure TD's playoff health. | |
| 5 | Seattle 45-20 | 1 Last Week: 4 | Trust us: Coach McMillan is far more concerned about the injury loss of Radmanovic than reports of the season's first locker-room grumbling about minutes, roles, shots, etc. | |
| 6 |  | 2 Last Week: 8 | Ricky Ricky is making a serious Sixth Man push. And Celts can't stop winning, even though they guard almost no one. | |
| 7 |  | -- Last Week: 7 | Now that the baton has been passed, let's be real. Until Dampier and Stackhouse return, it probably doesn't matter who's coaching. Mavs won't be a factor without those two healthy. | |
| 8 |  | 2 Last Week: 6 | Rockets haven't been this far over .500 since 1996-97. But they really don't feel like celebrating after losing Juwan for a while. | |
| 9 |  | -- Last Week: 9 | Gasol and Bonzi are back, but it's clear that Grizz have an underrated bench and a coach who deserves COY consideration whether or not he has been there all season. | |
| 10 |  | -- Last Week: 10 | Interesting stat: Nuggets now have more wins with Furious George in charge (18) than they had in the first 42 games (17). | |
| 11 |  | 1 Last Week: 12 | With six of seven on the road and Jamison ailing, Wiz face the threat of joining Cleveland, Chicago and Orlando on the slide. | |
| 12 |  | 1 Last Week: 11 | At 7-7 since the Webber deal, and with Miller out now, you have to start wondering if Kings will slip all the way down to No. 7 and into a first-round series against (ugh) Spurs or Suns. | |
| 13 |  | 5 Last Week: 18 | Carlisle won't win 50 games for the first time in four seasons, but he has to be a Coach of the Year factor if Pacers can make the playoffs after all they've been through. | |
| 14 |  | 5 Last Week: 19 | Under Flip, Wolves were a game under .500. Under McHale, they're 9-8 and (uh-oh) four behind Denver in the loss column. | |
| 15 | New Jersey 31-36 | 6 Last Week: 21 | Just when it appeared you could exclude Jersey from playoff consideration, this is the only Eastern Conference resident outside the top three on any kind of roll. | |
| 16 |  | 3 Last Week: 13 | After going 7-4 in February, Bulls are 4-7 in March and still have seven more games to play this month. And it hasn't helped matters that they're 0-4 against New Jersey. | |
| 17 |  | -- Last Week: 17 | Our man Stephen A. has put the heat squarely on Coach O'Brien. But perhaps this thumb injury is just the sort of bizarro-world spark Iverson needs to carry Philly into the playoffs. | |
| 18 |  | 4 Last Week: 14 | This probably isn't the week that pressure will ease on anyone in Cleveland. Cavs could be flirting with .500 after a home date with Detroit and trips to Houston and Dallas. | |
| 19 |  | 3 Last Week: 16 | Francis. Augmon. Weisbrod v. T-Mac. A coaching change. Things are unraveling so fast for this former feel-good team and poor Grant Hill that you don't know where to start. | |
| 20 |  | 5 Last Week: 15 | Orlando was 45-37 in its first season without Shaq. Lakers, presently on a 40-42 pace, would probably make the playoffs if they could somehow match that Magic effort. | |
| 21 |  | 1 Last Week: 20 | Clippers really could have been a contender for No. 8, but they can't win the close ones for the umpteenth straight season. Twelve of L.A.'s last 16 losses are by five points or less. | |
| 22 |  | 3 Last Week: 25 | Who saw this coming? With two wins over Sacramento sandwiched around a road upset of Phoenix, Montgomery is suddenly having a better March than Stanford. | |
| 23 |  | -- Last Week: 23 | Life on the road is as big an issue as any. Milwaukee is just 7-25 in away games, with all seven wins coming against East foes. | |
| 24 |  | -- Last Week: 24 | Raps are 21-24 since trading Vince. Not bad, actually, but not good enough to close all wounds opened by Vince's renaissance. | |
| 25 |  | 3 Last Week: 22 | Bold prediction II: Three losing seasons is about to become four, because Knicks -- with just two road wins in 2005 -- have way too many roadies left (10) to finish 14-4. | |
| 26 | New Orleans 15-50 | 2 Last Week: 28 | Only four more chances remain to spruce up that 0-12 record against Southwest Division neighbors. One game each against Dallas and Memphis, and two more against Houston. | |
| 27 |  | -- Last Week: 27 | The depths of Utah's struggles are simply hard to believe. Jerry Sloan has been stuck on 937 victories, one shy of tying Red Auerbach, since the first Jazz game of the month on March 2. | |
| 28 |  | 2 Last Week: 26 | Pritchard says he wants to return to personnel work at season's end. Can't blame him: Blazers are 9-27 since a 14-14 start. | |
| 29 |  | -- Last Week: 29 | Well, it's back to reality after the breakthrough road triumph in Toronto. Hawks just completed an 0-4 homestand, surrendering no fewer than 106 points in any of the losses. | |
| 30 | Charlotte 12-52 | -- Last Week: 30 | Yes, you guessed right: After a long lean spell, Bobcats have already circled their two Atlanta games next month. | |
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