Miami Heat Power Rankings - 2011-12

Power Ranking
WEEK	RECORD	RANK	COMMENT
Week 17	46-18	3	D-Wade just dislocated a finger, LeBron is lobbying to be rested in the final two games and their supporting cast continues to underwhelm. But I stick with what I said in the Bulls section: Miami wins the East. The No. 2 seed's side of the bracket looks slightly more inviting. Especially if the Knicks somehow finish sixth.
Week 16	42-17	6	I keep asking the question because it only gets more valid as Miami's mediocrity since the All-Star break (15-10) deepens ... and because award ballots popped into my inbox on Friday: As individually spectacular as LeBron's numbers look, how can the Heat's struggles not factor into MVP thinking?
Week 15	40-15	3	Should Miami finishing with the East's top seed -- in a season where Derrick Rose has missed almost a third of his team's games -- be a prerequisite for LeBron James to win the MVP trophy? Full disclosure: That's the way this voter is leaning as we enter the final two weeks and change before ballots are due to be turned in.
Week 14	37-14	4	You've barely heard a word about Erik Spoelstra this season, amid all the scrutiny Mike Brown and Vinny Del Negro have been attracting on the other side of the country, but something tells me that's about to change after Miami followed up six road Ls in March with a no-show in Boston. As for LeBron, read this tweet.
Week 13	35-12	4	Sunday's setback in OKC -- Miami's most lopsided L of the season -- will surely generate a fresh wave of loud doubt about the Heat's title chances. This is as far as I'll go: Failing to wrest the East's No. 1 seed away from wounded Chicago would be a worrying playoff harbinger ... as Professor Hollinger would say.
Week 12	33-11	2	The Heaters squandered a prime opportunity to win one in Chicago with D-Rose in street clothes, but don't ignore the flip side. Miami has won 13 straight at home -- just one shy of OKC's season-best run of 14 straight home wins -- while threatening to catch the Bulls for the league lead in nightly point differential.
Week 11	31-9	2	The Heat are undeniably sick of the coast-to-coast dissection of every crunch-time failure, but give it up to 'em on this particular Power Rankings Monday: They don't play many close games and just passed the last two tests against Atlanta and Indiana with D-Wade and LeBron both doing damage when it mattered.
Week 10	28-9	2	Harsh as some of the LeBron heat might seem when he's on pace to register the best single-season PER (33.14) ever, it's not just press-row wretches that keep harping on him for not taking the last shot. All the ex-pros on TV seem to feel the same way, which presumably tells you how fellow players see it.
Week 9	27-7	1	Who else could occupy this spot? The Heat completed their February schedule with a mark of 11-2 ...with 10 of those wins coming by at least 10 points. No other team in history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, has managed to post 10 such wins in a month containing as few as 13 games.
Week 8	25-7	1	If you believe in statistical omens, check this one out: Miami just won five straight games on the road by at least 10 points before Sunday's home cruise past Orlando. The only other team in league history to win five straight roadies by a double-digit margin: New York in its title-winning season of 1969-70.
Week 7	21-7	1	If the Heat fall to 0-3 on the season against the Bucks on Monday night in Milwaukee -- which would be Miami's second straight defeat to the Bogut-less Bucks -- let's hope someone on the scene asks LeBron, D-Wade and Bosh if they legitimately Fear The Deer as a potential first-round playoff foe.
Week 6	18-6	1	Applaud the approach: Miami has won 10 of 12, including a high-quality W in Philly, but the Heat haven't been happy with themselves lately, leading to an intense team meeting before Philly. Good to see they realize their focus has been unsteady. Good to hear they don't think they're playing as well as they should be.
Week 5	15-5	1	D-Rose will be pardoned for his late free throw misses Sunday because he was 29-for-29 in fourth quarters before those clanks. LeBron's fourth-quarter failings in the new season are starting to stack up (Warriors, Clippers, Bulls) and leaving us little choice but to laser in on them even when he's otherwise killing it.
Week 4	11-5	2	Something tells me Miami will hear a lot more about its home loss to a Milwaukee team that couldn't win on the road until this past weekend than its recent wins over the Spurs, Lakers and Sixers without D-Wade. Something also tells me that the Heatles are used to it by now.
Week 3	8-4	5	Three straight losses and a fresh rash of late-game failings were bad enough. But three separate leg injuries plaguing D-Wade -- with the Spurs, Lakers and Sixers next up on the schedule -- must worry Miami far more than anything that happened on the road.
Week 2	8-1	1	It's been only eight games, but the best start to a season in LeBron's career should leave little doubt as to why so many of us have been bangin' on him to force himself to operate closer to the bucket: He's shooting a ridiculous 60.1 percent from the floor.
Week 1	5-0	1	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.
Preseason	58-24	2	Heat warning: The team that lost in the Finals came back to win it all four times in a span of seven seasons in the '80s. But in the 21 seasons since it's happened only once, when Kobe's Lakers avenged Boston 2008 by beating Orlando in 2009.
Training Camp	25-7	0	If you believe in statistical omens, check this one out: Miami just won five straight games on the road by at least 10 points before Sunday's home cruise past Orlando. The only other team in league history to win five straight roadies by a double-digit margin: New York in its title-winning season of 1969-70.