Updated: November 13, 2012, 11:23 PM ET
Power Rankings: Spurs on top
ESPN.com
Monday, November 12
The season's first change at the top of ESPN.com's weekly NBA Power Rankings sees the defending champs from Miami taking a two-spot drop.
LeBron James' Heat are looking up at the San Antonio Spurs as well as the NBA's only remaining unbeaten team -- indeed still the New York Knicks -- after the Heat were routed on the road for the second time this month Sunday night in Memphis.
There's certainly no shame in losing to the Grizzlies, who just climbed into the top five themselves in the so-called "human" rankings, but the Spurs and Knicks have vaulted into the top two slots. Which makes for some interesting showdowns this week with San Antonio poised to visit the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night and then play host to the Knicks on Thursday night.
In other notable upward moves, Denver (No. 22 to No. 8) and Philadelphia (No. 18 to No. 9) made the biggest leaps, with the L.A. Clippers (No. 5 to No. 4) and Oklahoma City (No. 7 to No. 6) rising slightly and the Lakers -- after winning a couple of games and hiring new coach Mike D'Antoni -- inching back into the top 10. Among the steepest falls: Milwaukee dropped from No. 4 to a more fitting No. 14, while Indiana sank from No. 9 to No. 15.
The rankings are compiled with ever-helpful dishing from ESPN Stats & Info and the Elias Sports Bureau. Click here to rank the teams yourself.
| 2012-13 Power Rankings: Week 2 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 | 1 Last Week: 2 | The elite team that changed the least is supposed to start off best, right? Yet you still have to be impressed by the Spurs after the first 4-0 launch in team history -- including their ABA days -- and with Tim Duncan looking roughly twice as good as he did early in the lockout-shortened season. | ||
| 2 | 1 Last Week: 3 | Melo looks like a new man, their D has been stout and the Knicks continue to shoot the ball amazingly well. The lone disclaimer: They've had to play only four games in two weeks and three of those were at home. A legit stress test awaits this week with three road games in four nights. | ||
| 3 | 2 Last Week: 1 | Although the small-balling Heat were duly punished in Memphis in their first date with a power team, no one on South Beach is about to panic. Not when LeBron is routinely flirting with triple-doubles and does it with such ease that he makes you think he's saving some gas for the long haul. | ||
| 4 | 1 Last Week: 5 | Was counting on the Clips to fill that gaping hole at No. 4 last Monday but could not overlook the home stumble to Golden State. Yet they've atoned for a subsequent home collapse to Cleveland with a 3-0 week and a club-record-tying six straight 100-point games out of the gate. | ||
| 5 | 7 Last Week: 12 | Word is new Grizz owner Robert Pera can legitimately dunk. That inevitably led to jokes about how they have a far greater need for an owner who drains 3s ... but try telling that to Miami after the Wayne Ellington show. Says no less an authority than LeBron: "A really damn good team." | ||
| 6 | 1 Last Week: 7 | Shooting 50.7 percent on 3s in OKC, Kevin Martin can't give much more than he's given to his new team. We'd love to say the same about Russell Westbrook, but the birthday boy had been challenging Nick Young for the unofficial league lead in ill-advised shots until Sunday night. | ||
| 7 | 1 Last Week: 6 | Classic Thibs Era performance in that 87-80 home win over the Wolves. How classic? According to Elias, Chicago is now 20-12 under Tom Thibodeau in games in which it scores fewer than 90 points. The rest of the NBA, in the same span, has a .167 winning percentage compared to the Bulls' .625. | ||
| 8 | 14 Last Week: 22 | When you pile the sky-high expectations facing this team onto the reality that only five of the Nuggets' first 17 games will be played at home in the Mile High air, it's little surprise that no one in Denver is apologizing for the soft opposition seen during this 4-0 rebound from an 0-3 start. | ||
| 9 | 9 Last Week: 18 | Who had Boston in the pool for the scene of the Sixers' offensive breakout? Right. Nobody! Before Evan Turner and Jrue Holiday tag-teamed the Celts, Philly had been held below 90 points in the season's first four games for the first time since 1953-54. Before the advent of the shot clock. | ||
| 10 | 5 Last Week: 15 | You fire Mike Brown after just five games, openly flirt with Phil Jackson to tease the fans and then choose Mike D'Antoni instead to coach Kobe, Pau, Nash and Dwight? Crack open a Dos Equis, Lakers. The Most Interesting Team in the Basketball World just got even more interesting. | ||
| 11 | 1 Last Week: 10 | Rajon Rondo has posted 30 straight games with at least 10 assists. No other active player, not even Steve Nash, has enjoyed a similar assist streak that's lasted as many as 15 games. How many more Rondo superlatives do I need to distract you from Boston's otherwise shaky start? | ||
| 12 | 4 Last Week: 8 | The Lakers' coaching change probably affects Atlanta more than any other team in the East. Reason being: No matter how many times Danny Ferry insists he's not in a rush to bring in Mike Brown as his next coach or trade Josh Smith for Pau Gasol, speculation will surely keep coming up. | ||
| 13 | 2 Last Week: 11 | The locals wanted to believe these Mavs, without Dirk, had some unforeseen Cinderella in them after being subjected to a collapse by baseball's Rangers, another up-and-down Cowboys season and a lockout that shut down hockey's Stars. Saturday's L in Charlotte took care of that. | ||
| 14 | 10 Last Week: 4 | We repeat: Milwaukee was never supposed to rise as high as No. 4 last week. Purely circumstantial. The Bucks are back closer to the range where they belong thanks to the Clippers, Grizzlies and Thunder quickly making up for the bind they put the committee (of one) in last Monday. | ||
| 15 | 6 Last Week: 9 | The record can't quite be deemed alarming yet because the Pacers have played only twice at home. The alarming part: Roy Hibbert's struggles (8.7 ppg, 7.7 rpg, 38.4 percent shooting) are such that Danny Granger-less Indy must sometimes feel like it's down two frontcourt starters. | ||
| 16 | 3 Last Week: 13 | It's really not our intent to dwell on Utah's road woes. The Jazz, though, don't leave much choice thanks to the 0-4 road record -- after last season's 11-22 road mark that ranked last among all playoff teams -- they take into this week's four-game swing through the Eastern Conference. | ||
| 17 | 7 Last Week: 24 | Highlight of the week for the committee: Hearing from a handful of Wolves fans, after wins over Brooklyn and Indy, demanding apologies for dropping their Love-less, Rubio-free squad down to No. 24 after a 19-point hammering in Toronto. Midseason complaint form right there. | ||
| 18 | 4 Last Week: 14 | A home-and-home against the overmatched Magic was a needed tonic for the Nets to distract them from (A) that 22-point blown lead at home to Minnesota, (B) Gerald Wallace's latest ankle twist and worst of all (C) Joe Johnson's tepid start (13.8 ppg on .362 shooting) to life in Brooklyn. | ||
| 19 | New Orleans 3-2 | 1 Last Week: 20 | Some pertinent Hornets numbers: They've got the second-youngest team in the NBA at an average age of 24.7 years -- only Houston's younger at 24.0 -- and the unheralded Greivis Vasquez might make the Passquez tag stick if he can stay in the top five in assists (8.8 apg) all season. | |
| 20 | 3 Last Week: 17 | Although you can't exactly put it up there with David Stern's retirement announcement, James Harden's trade to OKC or the Lakers' coaching saga, Portland just produced an early shocker of its own when its bench got outscored 63-4 by San Antonio's. Sixty-three to four! | ||
| 21 | 7 Last Week: 14 | Call it a back-to-reality week for the increasingly smothered James Harden and his new team. Harden shot 15-for-47 from the floor (.319) in three games, averaged just 17.7 ppg and ran out of games against that friendly Detroit D with the Rockets' season series with the Pistons over now. | ||
| 22 | 3 Last Week: 19 | Instead of keeping the focus on Carl Landry and what a bargain he's been, how can you expect us to think or talk about anything else here but the latest Andrew Bogut news? Two editions of the rankings into the regular season and the Dubs have lost Bogut and Brandon Rush to injury. | ||
| 23 | 4 Last Week: 27 | Does erasing a 21-point deficit after a quarter to rally past Cleveland make up for the opening-night giveaway to Golden State? Tougher question: Does Marcin Gortat's start -- 12.6 ppg, 10.7 rpg and 3.9 bpg -- make you believe he can survive without Steve Nash like he vowed he would? | ||
| 24 | 1 Last Week: 25 | As Kemba Walker goes, so goes Charlotte? OK, OK: Michael Kidd-Gilchrist has had his moments, too. But Walker scored 30 points in the Bobcats' home upset of Indy on opening night ... and then totaled 26 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists and 8 steals in Saturday's surprise W over the Mavs. | ||
| 25 | 2 Last Week: 23 | With the NHL lockout ongoing, this should be prime time for the Raps. No competition, right? Good luck selling that concept in Canada with the country's only NBA team openly short on confidence without the injured Kyle Lowry and still facing lots of road games this month. | ||
| 26 | 5 Last Week: 21 | The only thing faster to date than Mike Brown's firing in L.A. was the swift plummet to Earth for Dwight Howard's old team once the Magic hit the road. Gotta believe, though, that the likes of Arron Afflalo, J.J. Redick and Big Baby Davis have never been more popular with fantasy owners. | ||
| 27 | 1 Last Week: 26 | Andy Varejao's determination to play through knee soreness over the weekend allowed the Cavs, with Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters flanking the Brazilian, to keep trotting out one of the league's most quietly watchable trios. Just don't tune in expecting to see any D or bench punch. | ||
| 28 | 1 Last Week: 29 | Does anyone even remember that Tyreke Evans was the Rookie of the Year in 2010? DeMarcus Cousins is making the wrong kind of headlines yet again, but Evans is off to a career-worst start after the Halloween deadline for contract extensions for his draft class came and went. | ||
| 29 | 1 Last Week: 28 | Three straight encouraging outings for Bradley Beal are pretty much all that the Wiz can point to right now as they await the returns of John Wall and Nene. They've endured an 0-5 start for the second successive season without those two ... and four such starts in the past five seasons. | ||
| 30 | -- Last Week: 30 | Never before have the Pistons started 0-8. That's what they'll be trying to avoid Monday night -- mired at 0-7 for the third time in franchse history -- when faced with the not-so-hospitable prospect of hosting Oklahoma City. (Being 0-9 entering Friday's date with Orlando is the safer bet.) | ||
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