NBA Power Rankings: Clippers have become a disaster, Pistons and Raptors on shocking surges
Here's where the NBA stands as we head into Thanksgiving
By
Brad Botkin
•
1 min read
The top seven teams in this week's NBA Power Rankings have combined to win 60 of their last 70 games. Two of those teams, the Raptors and Suns, absolutely nobody saw coming. The Pistons were expected to be good, but 15-2 and on an 13-game winnig streak good?
Meanwhile, the Clippers have been equally surprising in the opposite way. Their offseason was universally regarded as a big success. They're going to be huge? Look at all that front court depth! Kawhi Leonard is healthy! Yeah, not so much. The Clips are an official disaster.
- Note: As a general Power Rankings rule, we're going to try to strike a balance between what we're seeing so far and what can reasonably be expected to play out over, say, the next few weeks to a month.
- We will not go so far as to rank these teams based on championship expectations, because in that case it would take a lot more to alter, at least in tiers, the generally accepted hierarchy. Winning matters, and it will get you on the move up this board form week to week. But if you're beating bad teams, just as an example, and probably playing a little above your head, it's not necessarily going to be reflected in a completely commensurate climb up the rankings. Or vice versa.
Biggest Movers
7
Suns
7
Bulls
Rk | Teams | Chg | Rcrd | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | Jalen Williams still hasn't played. The Thunder have still only lost one game. Since last week's rankings they have throttled the Kings, Jazz and Blazers by a combined 73 points. They haven't won a game by fewer than 13 points since Oct. 28. Need I say more? | -- | 17-1 |
| 2 |  | Denver took a tough loss to the lowly Kings on Saturday but it was a back-to-back after a war against the Rockets the night before. Schedule loss. Denver is still the second-best team in the league, but this Aaron Gordon injury is definitely concerning. | -- | 13-4 |
| 3 |  | Houston went toe to toe with Denver in a 112-109 loss on Friday -- the team's only defeat in more than two weeks. The Rockets remain the top offense in the league and one of two teams (along with OKC) registering as a top-five unit in both offensive and defensive rating. | -- | 11-4 |
| 4 |  | At what point do we acknowledge that the Pistons might be the best team in the East? They haven't lost in nearly a month. Defense. Offensive rebounding. No. 1 in paint points. No. 2 in points off turnovers. Jaden Ivey is back. Cade Cunningham being 4 for 27 on catch-and-shoot 3s at a 28% clip from deep overall strikes me as something that is bound to turn, meaning the Pistons are going to get even tougher. | -- | 15-2 |
| 5 |  | Luka Dončić, Austin Reaves and LeBron James combined for 99 points and 22 assists in a win over the Clippers on Tuesday. The Lakers, who have now won five straight, have been at the bottom of the league in fast-break points all season, but LeBron being back is changing that in a hurry. They had 24 of them on Tuesday (Toronto leads the league at 20.9 per game). LeBron has scored 23 fast-break points in his three games back, which makes him No. 1 in the league on a per-game basis. With Luka and Reaves to control the half court, James still being this kind of open-court force is a major addition to an already very good Lakers team. | -- | 13-4 |
| 6 |  | The Raptors are going to force us to take them seriously in the Eastern Conference. They've now won eight straight and 12 of their last 13, with the most recent win coming over the Cavs on a career Brandon Ingram night. Nobody does more on the run that the Raptors, and right now nobody on their schedule can keep up. | 4 | 13-5 |
| 7 |  | The Suns are picking up full court and playing 48 minutes of in-your-face basketball. It's working. Only the Pistons and Thunder force more turnovers per game and only three teams have made more total 3s than the Suns' 273. Say what you want about Dillon Brooks, but the minute he shows up, your team becomes tough as nails. | 7 | 11-7 |
| 8 |  | Victor Wembanyama isn't with the Spurs on their four-game road trip, which began with a loss at Phoenix. Wemby could be out for close to a month with a calf strain, but so far the Spurs have been OK, winning three of their last four without him, albeit against pretty weak competition. Let's see how they fare against Portland, Denver and Minnesota over the next week. | 2 | 11-5 |
| 9 |  | Who needs pick-and-roll offense? The Heat are running the most common play in in basketball on just 4.5% of their possessions, the lowest mark in the league, and instead working the draw-and-kick game into drive after drive against closeouts and defenses in rotation. Combined with how fast they play (second in the league with 19 fast-break points per game), it nets them a ton of shots near the rim (No 2 in paint points per game). More importantly, they defend at a top-five rate. Miami has won five straight. | 6 | 12-6 |
| 10 |  | Cleveland lost (for the second time this season) to the suddenly unstoppable Raptors on Monday. The Cavs were on a back-to-back and playing without seven of their guys, including Darius Garland and Jarrett Allen. The Cavs still feels like they're just sort of biding their time. They are killing teams with Donovan Mitchell and Garland on the court, but their core four has barely played together. | 3 | 12-7 |
| 11 |  | After a sluggish start, the Magic are kicking into high gear with seven wins in their last nine games. They throttled the Sixers on Tuesday behind a career night from Anthony Black. They've done most of this without Paolo Banchero. Orlando is waxing teams by more than 16 points per 100 possessions when Jalen Suggs is on the court and falling all the way to minus-6.8 when he sits. One of the game's true winning players. | 5 | 11-8 |
| 12 |  | New York has split its last six games but two of the wins were against the Nets and two of the losses were vs. Orlando, with the latter obviously being a better measuring stick. The Knicks continue to struggle on the road (2-5) with games in Milwaukee and Toronto coming up over the next week. | 3 | 10-6 |
| 13 |  | Tough beat when you get 84 combined points from Anthony Edwards and lose two straight games to the Suns and Kings. On one hand, the Wolves are killing teams when the four-man unit of Edwards, Julius Randle, Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert are on the court and boast a top-10 offense and defense. On the other, they are yet to beat a team that is over .500 and don't really have a point guard. | 5 | 10-7 |
| 14 |  | Atlanta squeaked past the Hornets with Jalen Johnson becoming the first player in franchise history to card at least 25 points, 10 assists and 5 rebounds without committing a turnover, but then they took an ugly L to the Wizards on Tuesday. That's not the kind of loss they need with a brutal stretch coming up vs. the Cavs, Sixers, Pistons and Nuggets over the next week-and-a-half. | 3 | 11-8 |
| 15 |  | The Warriors snapped a three-game skid with a win over the Jazz, but Golden State remains a bottom-10 offense that is too dependent on Stephen Curry going superhero. This is a .500 team with a brutal stretch of schedule about to hit beginning with games against Houston and Oklahoma City over the next week. If the Warriors are above .500 at Christmas it will be a small miracle. | 3 | 10-9 |
| 16 |  | Jaylen Brown is shooting an outrageous 60.3% on shots from the dreaded 15-19 foot range. The Celtics are a top-five offense. On the flip side, only four teams give up more offensive rebounds per game and even their offensive success might not hold up as it comes largely via individual creation (29th in assist percentage). Maybe Brown keeps making a bunch of mid-range pull-ups. Hopefully Anfernee Simons builds on his super efficient week. Boston has won four of its last five but has some real testers coming up against Detroit, Minnesota, Cleveland, New York and the Lakers. | 3 | 9-8 |
| 17 |  | Tyrese Maxey continues to play out of his mind but he's not getting much help. Joel Embiid hasn't played in over two weeks. Paul George "returned" on Nov. 17 and has already missed two of a possible five games since. V.J. Edgecombe hasn't played in a week. On Tuesday, the Magic basically face-guarded Maxey and dared anyone else to beat them. Philly lost by 41. | 4 | 9-8 |
| 18 |  | Portland has lost seven of its last 10 with a defense that has plummeted from a top-five unit in the early going to only the Wizards having a worse rating over the last few weeks. They need Jrue Holiday back in a major way. | 2 | 8-10 |
| 19 |  | The Bulls are skidding. They needed a Nikola Vucevic 3-pointer with a second left to avoid blowing a 21-point fourth-quarter lead to the Blazers, and then they lost by 36 to the Heat before falling the Pelicans on Monday. They don't play again until Friday. Let's hope the time off gets them back on a good track, but after starting the season 6-1 they've now lost seven of their last 10. | 7 | 9-8 |
| 20 |  | Make it five straight losses for the Bucks, who are now sporting a bottom-10 offense and defense. The early success of this team wasn't going to last. It certainly doesn't help that Giannis has missed the last three games, but they could be getting him back sooner than later as he's listed as questionable for Wednesday night's game vs. Miami. | 3 | 8-10 |
| 21 |  | Memphis ended its losing streak with some very friendly schedule wins over the Kings and Mavericks before falling again to Denver. Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. are out but Zach Edey is (or was) back and crushing his minutes. But then he left the Denver game after a hit to the head after six minutes. | 3 | 6-12 |
| 22 |  | Utah has lost four straight and eight of their next 11 are against the Rockets (2), Knicks, Thunder, Lakers, Magic, Nuggets and Pistons. The tank is about to hit full stride. | 1 | 5-12 |
| 23 |  | The Clippers have now lost 11 of their last 13 games and the only two wins are over the Mavericks and Hornets. It's not even about Kawhi Leonard being healthy anymore. They're 3-5 when he plays. Chris Paul announced that this will be his last season and all I can wonder is why he's even going to play it out. I guess the farewell tour? The Clippers are not going anywhere. James Harden has been one of the most impactful players this year and the Clips are still a bottom-10 offense with a bottom-five defense. | 1 | 5-13 |
| 24 |  | This space will continue to be a dedicated Kon Knueppel fan page until there is some other reason to talk about the Hornets, who have lost five straight as LaMelo Ball continues to shoot basically all his 3s off one foot. | 1 | 4-13 |
| 25 |  | The Mavericks want to trade Anthony Davis no matter how vehemently Mark Cuban suggests otherwise in a thinly veiled attempt to generate some kind of leverage for a player than nobody wants considering his contract and injury history. There's nothing else to say about the Mavericks. It's just a disgusting situation that they traded Luka for a player they're now going to basically have to give away. Cooper Flagg probably isn't even going to win Rookie of the Year. The offense has no chance in the actual fair amount of games they manage to keep close until winning time. | -- | 5-14 |
| 26 |  | The Pelicans snapped a nine-game losing streak with a win over the Bulls on Monday. Zion Williamson is back, but Derik Queen and Jeremiah Fears have become the only real reasons to pay attention to the Pelicans in terms of when, if ever, they might turn this situation around. Zion will never be healthy long enough to matter. They have to trade Trey Murphy III. | 2 | 3-15 |
| 27 |  | The Kings won a game! Against the Nuggets! Sure, Denver was on a back-to-back after a basketball way against the Rockets the night before, but hey, after you've lost eight straight you'll take whatever you can get. Sacramento still stinks and would love to trade just about every player on its roster. | 1 | 5-13 |
| 28 |  | Brooklyn has won three games this year. Two of them hardly count -- toilet bowl matchups against the Pacers and Wizards. But they got a real win over the Celtics last Friday to stay out of the cellar of these here rankings. | 1 | 3-14 |
| 29 |  | The Pacers have won two games all season. What is there really to say? Just a total bummer to go from Game 7 of the NBA Finals to this. Ben Mathurin is at least back and Pascal Siakam remains awesome, but this team just doesn't have the horses to even come close to overcoming the worst collective shooting percentage in the league. | 2 | 2-15 |
| 30 |  | You want to know the definition of an outlier? The Wizards, who had lost 14 straight games, beat the Hawks by 19 points on Monday with C.J. McCollum scoring 46 points on 10 3-pointers. | -- | 2-15 |
