Power Rankings: Three-way race for top spot
Week: Team:
The Dallas Mavericks' courtesy hold on the top spot in ESPN.com's weekly NBA Power Rankings didn't make it to halftime of their first game.
The Miami Heat rolled up a 35-point lead on their old friends from Dallas before the fourth quarter on Christmas Day, then used that rout to fuel the first 5-0 start in franchise history, quickly sending LeBron, D-Wade & Co. to the rankings summit.
Perhaps we're showing too much of the respect we always grant to the reigning champs, given how old and slow and out of shape no less of an authority than Dirk Nowitzki says they look, but the Mavs have clung to their spot in the top half of the rankings despite a humbling 1-4 start. Only the fact that three of the Mavs' four losses came to teams in the top four has kept them from falling below No. 15. For now.
Denver (No. 9 to No. 4), Orlando (No. 12 to No. 5), Portland (No. 14 to No. 6) and Philadelphia (No. 16 to No. 9) are the big climbers since the preseason rankings of Dec. 23. Taking a double-digit tumble, along with the Mavs, are Memphis (No. 8 to No. 19) and New Jersey (No. 19 to 29).
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 Steve Nash-esque dishing from ESPN Stats & Information and the Elias Sports Bureau. Click here to comment on these rankings.
| 2011-12 Power Rankings: Week 1 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 |  | 1 Last Week: 2 | Most impressive aspect of the best start in Heat history besides what we've seen from LeBron? In all five games, they've scored at least 23 points in transition. Miami went 20-2 last season when its running game cracked the 20s. | |
| 2 |  | 2 Last Week: 4 | If point differential means something to you -- and by now it really should -- it should be impressive to hear that the Derrick Rose-led Bulls now have three 40-point wins since December 2010 ... in a league with only nine such scores total in that span. | |
| 3 |  | -- Last Week: 3 | Durant nearly became the first player since Air Jordan in 1986-87 to start a season with five straight 30-point games. And when KD scored only 12 in game No. 5, neither that nor or any Westbrookgate spillover stopped OKC from reaching 5-0. | |
| 4 |  | 5 Last Week: 9 | Maybe I'm saying so because the committee (of one) was there in person to see Denver splatter the defending champs in its season opener, but the Nuggets -- with all their speed and depth -- look as dangerous as a team can when it loses two early. | |
| 5 |  | 7 Last Week: 12 | After his usual Christmas dud, Dwight Howard became the first player since Dennis Rodman in 1997 with back-to-back games with at least 24 boards. No signs yet, then, of DH12 checking out to try to force Orlando to trade him. Yet. | |
| 6 |  | 8 Last Week: 14 | It's cold to say it out loud but undeniably true: Portland plays faster in the post-Roy era. It's early, obviously, but the Blazers have been a lot more watchable. Especially with Matthews, Felton and Crawford all scoring 20-plus against Denver. | |
| 7 |  | 3 Last Week: 10 | Through four games, Timmy Duncan had managed a whopping total of 36 points. Part of that, though, is that Coach Pop -- just granted entrance to the 800 Club in career wins -- is clearly pacing TD through the Spurs' favorable early schedule. | |
| 8 |  | 1 Last Week: 7 | Still trying to process L.A.'s failure to turn an eight-point lead with 2:11 to go into a Christmas Day win over Chicago, which made Mike Brown the first head coach to lose at home by one point in his debut since ... Vancouver's Stu Jackson. | |
| 9 |  | 7 Last Week: 16 | Maybe it's a touch too soon for Most Improved Player nominations, but keep an eye on Spencer Hawes. He's posted four double-figure rebound games in four outings already, after cracking double digits just 12 times in 81 games last season. | |
| 10 |  | 5 Last Week: 5 | Can the Clips possibly live up to expectations? The early returns suggest that some of us are getting carried away, but entertaining us hasn't been an issue. Not with the gaudy numbers CP3, Blake and DeAndre -- nearly four blocks per game -- are putting up. | |
| 11 |  | 4 Last Week: 15 | Two guys who were ready to get going: Kyle Lowry averaged 17.0 ppg, 9.3 apg and 6.3 rpg before his 18 assists against Atlanta, while Kevin Martin just scored 73 points on 48 shots in the first back-to-back-to-back of his life. | |
| 12 |  | 1 Last Week: 13 | Landing David West in free agency, at a very reasonable $20 million over two years, was an undeniable coup for the Pacers. D-West, though, has started slowly for a team that really should be 4-0, shooting 18-for-49 from the floor (36.7 percent). | |
| 13 |  | 7 Last Week: 6 | You already knew that the Knicks desperately need someone with a dependable floor game who can make the game easier. You simply know it better now after the ups and downs of their first four games. Baron Davis can't get healthy soon enough. | |
| 14 |  | 4 Last Week: 18 | The Hawks would owe it to themselves to try as hard they can to chase Dwight Howard no matter where he's from, but it'll be interesting nonetheless to see how the likes of Al Horford and Joe Johnson cope with seeing their names out there. | |
| 15 |  | 14 Last Week: 1 | The state of emergency triggered by the Cowboys' latest crisis will buy the reigning champs a little time locally. Not much time, though, if they keep digging deep holes and Delonte West continues to be their most dependable player on the road. | |
| 16 |  | 5 Last Week: 11 | It felt like forever watching them labor through those first three games on the road without the ailing Paul Pierce (heel), but it was only last season that the Celts were the last team in the league to lose a game. Remember that 8-0 start? | |
| 17 |  | 3 Last Week: 20 | Kevin Love has made shedding pounds and swishing step-back 3s look as natural as his board work. Ricky Rubio plays entire fourth quarters and surely will start soon. A return to the Marriott downtown with two-story rooms is on the horizon. | |
| 18 |  | 3 Last Week: 21 | Mark Jackson has seen more good than bad in his first nine days as an NBA coach with those wins over the Bulls and Knicks. Yet there's been no shortage of upheaval thanks to various issues for Curry and Ellis and a bad home loss to Sixers. | |
| 19 |  | 11 Last Week: 8 | You can make the case that the Griz actually rank as the most disappointing team of Week 1 (and change) after losing by 40 in Chicago, but barbs like that will bounce right off 'em as long as they get word that Z-Bo's knee injury isn't serious. | |
| 20 |  | 3 Last Week: 17 | A one-point loss in Charlotte on opening night was not the way to start. Not when you look at the Bucks' schedule and see that a five-game swing out West, launching a run of 11 out of 15 games on the road, starts Monday night in Denver. | |
| 21 |  | 3 Last Week: 24 | Seeing them beat the Lakers and how much it meant to everyone there reminded you that these guys belong in Sactown. Or at least it did until the latest Cousins Controversy reminded us that chaos is always lurking with such an ill-meshing roster. | |
| 22 | New Orleans 2-2 | 6 Last Week: 28 | Not sure how long we can expect to see Eric Gordon in New Orleans -- since exactly one player (Emeka Okafor) remains from the roster that GM Dell Demps inherited -- but the kill shot to win Game 1 in Phoenix always will be a good memory. | |
| 23 | Charlotte 1-3 | 7 Last Week: 30 | Boris Diaw began the season with two near triple-doubles for the Bobcats, who came within a whisker of shocking Miami and starting out 2-0. The unavoidable question in response: Have Diaw and the Bobcats already hit their 2011-12 peak? | |
| 24 |  | 2 Last Week: 26 | Bargnani looks sharp offensively and does seem to be submitting the best defensive effort we've seen from him. Which is all the Raps can ask for in this transitional season waiting for Valanciunas, one more top draftee and next summer's cap space. | |
| 25 |  | 4 Last Week: 29 | Swiping LeBron from Clevelanders apparently wasn't enough. Now it's Cleveland State's Norris Cole who's been ensnared by the clutches of South Beach. Pleased as the Cavs must be to be .500, local distaste for Miami can only be spreading. | |
| 26 |  | 1 Last Week: 25 | Facing the prospect of a second successive 0-4 start, with Lawrence Frank toting a 20-game losing streak thanks to an L in his final 17 games coaching the Nets, Detroit got five guys in double figures to finally crack 90 points and surprise Indy. | |
| 27 |  | 5 Last Week: 22 | Sure looks like there might be something to those initially hard-to-fathom fears about the Suns -- Steve Nash's Suns -- not being able to score enough. Seven teams on this Monday awoke scoring less than 90 ppg. And Phoenix was one of 'em. | |
| 28 |  | 5 Last Week: 23 | Beating Philly at home enabled the rebuilding, our-kids-are-the-future Jazz to avoid their first 0-3 start since 1979-80. Only one team has a longer streak, FWIW: Milwaukee has gone 35 straight seasons without an 0-3 start dating to 1977-78. | |
| 29 | New Jersey 1-4 | 10 Last Week: 19 | Not much is riding on this season beyond the fact that the Nets will have sacrificed Derrick Favors and the rights to Enes Kanter and a 2012 lottery pick for one full season of D-Will if D-Will leaves in July. So, yeah, it's panic time already. | |
| 30 |  | 3 Last Week: 27 | Only one team out there hasn't won a game yet. The Wiz haven't been competitive enough yet to really flirt with the notion of a W. We do co-sign on the return of their old color scheme, but even that could have been done with more precision. | |
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