NBA Power Rankings: Celtics best in league, Nuggets & Thunder climb | Hoops Tonight

NBA Power Rankings: Celtics best in league, Nuggets & Thunder climb | Hoops Tonight

What’s up everybody thanks as always for supporting the show it would mean a lot to me if you would take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel and then follow me on social media on Tik Tok Instagram and Twitter

So you guys don’t miss any of our content over the course of this season all right let’s talk some basketball all right let’s move on to our power rankings uh one team dropping out this week the Dallas Mavericks they dropped two games last week both without Luca to

Memphis and New Orleans and they’re currently I’m not watching the game but I saw it was on when I was doing my notes they’re current trailing the Pelicans again but luuk is out so obviously I expect him to return at some point he’s resting an ankle injury I

Believe and I expect that they’ll be back on this list within a few weeks number 10 the Miami Heat our new team this week they’re eight- four in their last 12 games and they have the third best defense in the league over that span Tyler herrow and haime hakz Jr

In that span are combining to average 38 points 10 rebounds and seven assists and 2.5 steals per game getting really high quality perimet play from those two guys which has helped a lot with jimmmy Butler being out again Jimmy Butler has played just one game and played hurt

Over this 12 game span so super encouraging on that front I still think they need to trade for a really high-powered offensive player and the play of hakz and herrow has kind of made that a little bit bit more possible because I think those guys are desirable

In a way that they may not have been over the off season right but it remains to be seen if Miami will actually make that sort of aggressive move number nine the New York Knicks they finally took a loss in the OG and and Obi era

In on the road in Dallas that came out flat and got ran off the floor uh battled back but didn’t really have enough gas at the end of the day ogan anobi so far in with the Knicks 238 minutes plus 132 that’s insane he was even plus 14 in

The Dallas loss the Knicks are defending 97.4 defensive rating so far with ogn and Obi on the floor since the trade also the Knicks have a really light end of their uh January on the schedule mostly at home and they should be favored in every single game except for

The Nuggets game and I believe that game is in MSG which I wouldn’t be surprised if the Knicks came out and won that one so don’t be surprised if we come over uh come on the show in February and the Knicks are significantly higher on this list and in the standings number eight

The New Orleans Pelicans they got smacked by Denver but they beat Sacramento and they beat uh Golden State and they beat Dallas um great example of that same thing I was just talking about with the Clippers as it pertains to championship contention in matchups right like they are it’s like the

Difference between like these long athletic heavily polished teams with like really good ball handling and pull-up shooting versus the power and strength teams right like that’s kind of the the the difference there and I think it’s really interesting that the Pelicans when they play other finesse teams like when they play Sacramento

They beat their ass when they play Golden State they beat him when they beat play Dallas although Luc is out they beat him right but then they go and play one of those big strong bullyball teams and they get their ass kicked so like among those finess teams the

Pelicans are one of the best in the league but I don’t think it’s it’s it’s a good sign in general for these teams that they keep getting their ass kicked when they go to play the bigger teams around the league number seven the Philadelphia 76ers uh they beat Sacramento and lost

To Atlanta but Joel embiid was out embiid is back today against Houston and is currently whooping their ass and tomorrow they play Denver at home hopefully Joel embiid will play in the tail end of the back toback good opportunity for him to uh make a big

Step forward in his MVP case if he can outplay Nicole yic number six the Los Angeles Clippers they dropped a couple of uh games against big teams like we mentioned earlier in Minnesota and the Lakers that have me a bit concerned about their playoff potential they are

Now one in five this season against the three massive Western Conference teams that I always talk about Denver Minnesota and the Lakers number five the Milwaukee Bucks they have an undefeated week they beat Boston Golden State and Sacramento but Boston was on the back on on a back-to-back after a overtime win

Against Minnesota Golden State sat SE St Steph Curry can’t talk today and Sacramento basically wins that game if if uh Malik Monk and Darren Fox can make some free throws at the end of the game so I’m only moving them up one spot that said two big Silver Linings three big

Silver Linings their defense can still get so much better their offense can still get so much better and that Celtics match up was a strong indicator of the basketball IQ advantage that Milwaukee has number four the Minnesota Timberwolves they lost a tough overtime game in Boston they led by nine with

Three and a half minutes left without Conley or Rudy goar so as impressive a loss as you’ll see uh but they followed it up with a complete dismantling of the Clippers where they basically made all four of the Clipper Stars play well below their standards they’re officially done with their hellacious stretch in

Their schedule 18 straight games against really good teams and what did I say during that stretch I was like you don’t go undefeated in these runs you don’t rip off 18 straight against good teams it’s you wanted just a decent chunk over 500 that’s literally what I said and

They went 11 and seven so really really encouraging stretch from the Timberwolves they were third in defense over that stretch so their defense is very legitimate and that they’ve demonstrated so 20th in offense over that span though so everything really comes down to Anthony Edwards as a playoff shot Creator because this team

Still struggles to score so much nobody can really stop him from getting to his spots if he can make enough shots and make enough good decisions the Timberwolves have a chance number three the Denver Nuggets they got absolutely blitzed in Utah but everyone’s been getting blitzed

In Utah for a while Utah has won 11 straight home games for the record but then they beat the breaks off the Pelicans and they beat the Pacers this is a great example of a veteran team that attacks the regular season and has a top tier Superstar great indicator of

My opinion of a championship Contender still by far my number one Championship favorite at this point number two the Oklahoma City Thunder The Undefeated week they beat the Miami Heat the Portland Trailblazers and the Orlando Magic best offense in the league over the last 10 games a 125.2 offensive

Rating Shay gildas Alexander has gone for 30 plus points in 28 of his 37 games this year and has five 40-point games more than everyone in the league not named Giannis Luca or embiid if he keeps playing like this he’s got a good shot at winning the MVP award this season and

Then number one the Boston Celtics they dropped a game to Milwaukee that felt very much like a schedule loss on the heels of a big win against Minnesota in that game against Minnesota Jason Tatum hit a really tough pullup three over Carl towns late that made it a two-point

Game helped send the game to overtime last week we talked about Jason Tatum’s pull-up three and what it means for Boston’s offense and whether or not he could maintain it over time well one more week three more games 6 for 13 on pullup threes that’s 46% so it’s a few

Weeks now where Jason Tatum has had that pull-up three going very very encouraging we’ll see if he can maintain it that shot is now worth his overall pull-up jump shooting is worth 0.94 points per shot ticking up in the right direction again when we talk about playoff teams and we talk about what

They can do in the future a lot of it has to do with you know being able to win in different types of matchups because you have to beat four teams four times out of seven and so if you match up really well with a team that might

Have done better than you in the regular season and you win great but you could run into a team that didn’t do as good as you in the regular season but a bad matchup for you and you can lose right and so that’s why we when we’re looking

At the regular season you have to you know you have to sift through everything right there are a lot of people out there that get really carried away with regular season results I’m not that guy those of you who followed the show for a while know that like there are guys out

There where it’s like oh my gosh this team won 10 games in a row like watch out for them so and so is the best player in the league this team’s got to be a championship Contender and it’s like I just have seen so many times over

The years the regular season results not mean anything I mean even just last year as we look it’s like Miami bses through the regular season even kind of bses through the playing tournament then suddenly goes to the finals right Lakers start the season 2 and 10 are literally floundering people are talking

About them non-stop all year just like this year and then they end up making a run to the Western Conference Finals right like Golden State you know kind of a little bit of a of a mediocre regular season and then all of a sudden they beat the Sacramento Kings who kick

Everyone’s ass during the regular season right and part of the issue is is like motivation just plays a huge role in the NBA regular season it just does like I I I I I was talking about this with my buddy Pete the other day like the difference between different types of

Regular season teams like there are these young energetic talented teams that love playing together and they’re young and they’re full of all this you know energy and they win a ton of regular season games right this year we’re looking at teams like the um uh the Oklahoma City Thunder right we’re

Looking at teams like Memphis last year right like that sort of thing does happen in the NBA where you get a young super talented team they win a ton of games and then generally what happens is that team runs into like an older veteran team in the playoffs that didn’t

Take the regular season as seriously and then they get beat right there was the Warriors did it to the Grizzlies two years ago the Lakers did it to the Grizzlies last year I don’t know who’s going to do it to the Thunder this year

We’ll see but like I I I’m I think the Thunder are a championship Contender but I would be surprised if they lose this year in the first or second round to an older veteran team right then you have like these veteran teams that are like that are are are they hate regular

Season basketball and they’re just trying to get through it and as the league has gotten deeper with Talent they it’s even worse on that front I mean the thing with the Lakers is so funny because so many people point to the trade deadline last year they’re like oh they traded Russell Westbrook

And and they’ve flipped the roster and then look at them go they go to the Western Conference Finals who started the Western Conference Finals who started game four of the Western Conference Finals between the nuggets and Lakers it was Austin Reeves on the roster before the Russell Westbrook

Trade Dennis schroer on the roster before the Russell Westbrook trade ruy haimura on the roster before the Russell Westbrook trade LeBron James on the roster before the Russell Westbrook trade Anthony Davis on the roster before the Russell Westbrook trade because the re the reality is is what happens is a

Lot of these veteran teams when they don’t like playing together and when they’re irritated and they’re all pissy and emotional and and and and and and they’re uh you know kind of passive aggressively making their way through the season they play basketball while the young 23y olds that all that

All are are you know just super energetic and talented and all this they win a lot of regular season games right like that’s the thing the Lakers didn’t just get dramatically better at the deadline last year LeBron and Anthony Davis got healthy and they started trying every night and when they

Started trying every night they started winning guys in the Russ Russell Westbrook trade did help in that span I’m not trying to pretend like that stuff doesn’t matter but effort plays a huge role like I expect the Lakers to make some sort of personnel change around the deadline this year and who

Knows what’ll happen with the coach they’ll either fire him or they won’t but I I at this point I I I don’t think they will but like what’ll happen is is they’ll be like all right guys like we’re you know two games below 500 with

30 games left we got to get it together and and then they go and then they end up running into some young team in the playoffs and they’re just better because they’re older they’re more experienced they’re bigger and they’re stronger they just they just know how to do this stuff

And so we all have to like work on sorting through the noise of the regular season because there there are lots of teams like this around the league like like like the one thing that we always have to really really pay close attention to is when you do get a older

Veteran team that also loves to attack the regular season and that also loves to play together and that also doesn’t seem to be miserable in January right and typically if that team also has a top tier Superstar like you should really be looking at that team as a championship Contender that for the

Record is why I have Denver as my like I i’ I’ve they were my number one Championship Contender before the season and that hasn’t changed but recently I told you guys I personally would be surprised if Denver did not win as long as their core five guys are healthy and

That’s the reason why I feel that way because there’re and that’s why I refer to Denver as a special team they they have guys that have been around for a while they’ve already been to the mountain top because that’s the other thing that always happens with these

Veteran teams like don’t don’t think for a second the fact that the uh like look at what happened to Anthony Davis the minute he hoisted the Larry O’Brien trophy he won it once and then just down the like it’s a completely different guy from a motivation standpoint right so

When you got a guy that already has won it all in joic in a team of guys that is already won it all W it comfortably and they know they don’t really need to take the regular season seriously and yet they still do that’s like big shining

Red lights it’s like this team’s really good and and we and we should keep an eye on them and that and that’s why I have uh Denver as my number one Championship Contender but the point of that whole rant is to say like we have to sort through regular season

Noise there are going to be teams every year that massively overachieve that massively underachieve and we have to kind of piece and through all that stuff to kind of figure it out right and then there there’s a match up element too like we talked about that was Nick Cavs last

Year like a bad matchup for Cleveland wipes away a good regular season like all sorts of stuff like this can change playoff outcomes because we just don’t pay attention to the details of what’s happening in the regular season right so we have to sort through that

Jason Timpf drops his weekly NBA Power Rankings where Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics have held the top spot for a month. This week is no different as the Celtics have dominated the entire season so far. A pair of Western Conference teams in the Denver Nuggets, led by Nikola Jokic, and the Oklahoma City Thunder, led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, continue to soar up the rankings as they round out the top 3.

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