Power Rankings: Mavs hold on to top spot; Cavs gain ground
Updated: March 19, 2007, 12:18 PM ET
By
Marc Stein | ESPN.com
Week: Team:
 | |
So what does it all mean?
At the top of ESPN.com's weekly NBA Power Rankings, it doesn't change much. Detroit and Cleveland have crept into the top five with their recent surges, which has Utah skidding out of the top five, but the Mavs have survived the termination of their 17-game win streak to retain the No. 1 slot for the seventh successive week.
Read on to see where your team ranks and click here to send in your feedback.
| 2006-07 Power Rankings: Week 20 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 |  | -- Last Week: 1 | Mavs' first losing streak since their 0-4 start in November left them on a 68-14 pace. But we repeat: Who around Dallas really took advantage? Right, nobody. | |
| 2 |  | -- Last Week: 2 | How unexpected were those back-to-back losses to Bucks and Celts? In their previous 13 games, Spurs were 13-0 and let only five of those 13 foes score more than 82. | |
| 3 |  | -- Last Week: 3 | Suns follow up their most impressive victory of the season by losing both games of a back-to-back by a combined 46 points? That's what you call a Letdown Effect. | |
| 4 |  | 1 Last Week: 5 | No wonder LeBron wants to run more. Cavs are up to 22-3 when they score at least 100 points and they're averaging 103.6 ppg during this eight-game win streak. | |
| 5 |  | 2 Last Week: 7 | Go figure. Pistons sweep a 5-0 road trip out West, winning the capper in Phoenix despite losing Billups, but are likewise in the midst of a three-game home losing skid. | |
| 6 |  | 2 Last Week: 4 | Boozer wound up surviving his long-awaited Cleveland return. But the four-game trip, as an 0-4 whole, represents the low point of Utah's storybook season so far. | |
| 7 |  | 1 Last Week: 6 | Our apologies: Rockets' season finale at Utah should have made our top 25 games list Friday, with home-court advantage in the first round potentially on the line. | |
| 8 |  | -- Last Week: 8 | Maybe we shouldn't be so surprised that Heat turned it on now, even without Wade. Miami is 40-2 at home in February and March since Shaq arrived in the '04-05 season. | |
| 9 |  | -- Last Week: 9 | Bulls are destined for the East's No. 5 seed, but remember: They'll have home-court advantage in the first round as long as they have more wins than the No. 4 seed. | |
| 10 |  | 2 Last Week: 12 | Almost everyone's struggling from No. 10 down. Before routing Lakers and Suns, Denver hadn't beaten a winning team since Jan. and was 0-9 vs. the West's top four. | |
| 11 |  | -- Last Week: 11 | The good news: Wiz are 5-3 in March after a 4-7 February. The bad news: Hanging onto their Southeast Division lead just got a lot tougher now that Butler's ailing. | |
| 12 |  | 2 Last Week: 10 | Best record in franchise history update: Our Raps would need a 12-3 finish to record their first 48-win season ever. Which is asking too much, realistically. | |
| 13 |  | -- Last Week: 13 | What a conference. Lakers endure separate six- and seven-game skids in a six-week span but still cling to the No. 6 seed, even in the (allegedly) mighty West. | |
| 14 |  | 4 Last Week: 18 | Did Nellie know what he was doing all along? By publicly waving the white flag about its playoff chances, maybe he took all the pressure off his suddenly hot young team. | |
| 15 | New Jersey 31-36 | 5 Last Week: 20 | Since they (predictably) went 0-3 on their Texas Triangle trip, losing by an average of 16.7 ppg, Nets are 3-1 with reactivated Jefferson leading them in scoring twice. | |
| 16 |  | -- Last Week: 16 | Evident progress? You tell me if Isiah has achieved it with losing records in November-December-January and records of 6-5 and 4-3 in February and March, respectively. | |
| 17 |  | 2 Last Week: 15 | No wonder they've sunk out of the West's top eight. Clips have won just once in their past eight road games and just twice in their nine games this month. | |
| 18 | NO/Oklahoma City 29-37 | 1 Last Week: 17 | Paul's reward for putting off the foot surgery he needs? If not for an 18-point comeback in New York on Friday night, his Hornets would be 0-8 in March. | |
| 19 |  | 5 Last Week: 14 | Sixers have only lost three times in their last 11 games. Their sin? All three of those losses happened after we went out on a limb to bump them up to No. 14. | |
| 20 |  | 8 Last Week: 28 | The law of averages says Celts were L-O-N-G overdue to beat Spurs. But don't forget, one night earlier, they almost beat Mavs in Texas, too. Team of the Week, for sure. | |
| 21 |  | 2 Last Week: 19 | A home-and-home with Phoenix awaits after Kings finish their five-game East trip in Atlanta. Then they've still got games against Mavs, Jazz, Rockets and at Spurs. | |
| 22 |  | 1 Last Week: 23 | Explain these trends for slumping Magic: They've won four straight against their state rivals and are 3-0 this season when going O-fer as a team from 3-point range. | |
| 23 |  | 2 Last Week: 21 | It's a good thing Wittman has KG's support because the numbers -- 10 consecutive road defeats and 10 losses in 13 games overall -- don't make for pleasant reading. | |
| 24 |  | 1 Last Week: 23 | It's a good thing Indy Sub-.500 finally beat Hawks on Saturday. Check out Pacers' next five games: Rockets and Spurs away, followed by Heat-Bulls-Cavs at home. | |
| 25 |  | 2 Last Week: 27 | At the time of the coaching change, Bucks had the league's worst record in 2007 at 7-26 . . . 2-15 on the road. Boston, by comparison, was 9-26, with Memphis at 9-25. | |
| 26 | Seattle 26-40 | 1 Last Week: 25 | Satisfying as it must have been to pound Blazers for the second time in less than a month, Sonics can't easily forget that they've lost 18 games by six points or less. | |
| 27 |  | 5 Last Week: 22 | With the playoffs out of range and after suffering another heavy loss to neighboring Seattle, Blazers' new priority is making sure Arenas doesn't score 50 on Tuesday. | |
| 28 |  | 2 Last Week: 26 | Despite going 4-2 in their first six games without J. Johnson, Chuck Barkley's Hawks -- whom he proclaimed to be playoff-bound -- need a 15-0 finish just to hit .500. | |
| 29 | Charlotte 24-43 | -- Last Week: 29 | Larry Brown admits he can't say no if MJ asks him to coach Bobs. Our question: Is an expansion team that doesn't like to spend really the best fit for Larry at this point? | |
| 30 |  | -- Last Week: 30 | More tanking trivia: Grizz are just the fourth team in NBA history with zero winning streaks through 65 games. No joke: Grizz have yet to win more than one in a row. | |
| ||||
ESPN Conversations
comments
