NBA Power Rankings: Celtics & Nuggets collision course? Knicks surging, Clippers hot | Hoops Tonight

NBA Power Rankings: Celtics & Nuggets collision course? Knicks surging, Clippers hot | Hoops Tonight

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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 moving on to our power rankings so much more positive this week compared to last week like most of the top teams lost one game but then won the rest of

Their games we did have two teams dropping out the Philadelphia 7 Sixers they’ve lost five out of six also big picture Trends here after their 8-1 start they’re just 22 and 17 for the season they’re just 10 and 11 against teams that are 500 or better so like a

Lot of it has been easy schedule for them in terms of where they’re at in the standings they have a really tough schedule down the stretch this season and now Joan beid is out for an undetermined amount of time due to knee surgery so obviously like um we were

Already starting to see some of these Trends form and now they’re in a really tough spot with where they’re at with the remaining schedule and with Joel embiid missing at least what at least a month of that if not longer now on the Joe embiid injury front sounds like it’s

Going to depend entirely on how the surgery goes like it looks like he could be back in time for the playoffs or he could be done for the season and in a lot of ways it kind of simplifies their deadline strategy because it looked for

A while there like they might need to be a little bit more aggressive to try to bring in some Firepower but now there’s no uh no need to overpay or to like kind of Rush that process you can kind of take your time with it give the keys to

Tyrese Maxi let him run the show here down the stretch of the Season see what he’s got there see what find out more about his development over the course of the stretch when he doesn’t have a pick and roll partner the likes of Joel embiid it’s going to be a hard challenge

For him but you’re going to find out a lot more about him and what he can mean for you as a foundational piece whether or not he’s good enough to be your second best player if you’re better served for him to be your third best

Player you can learn a lot and hell if you find a good deal around this deadline you can jump on it but you don’t have to be the desperate team and that could give them some flexibility I personally hope Jolan be can come back because I want to see him

Overcome this playoff challenge that he’s been dealing with at this phase of his career I think he has the potential to be the best player in the world so I’m hoping that he gets a good outcome from his knee surgery and that he can come back and make a run before the end

Of the season but this does simplify some of the urgency surrounding Philly because it’s no longer just like a kind of like a clear Runway into the playoffs like you would hope for in a season like this and then the other team that’s dropping out for me is the Indiana

Pacers they’ve lost eight of their last 13 games they’ve lost three in a row against good teams this week the offense has been mediocre the defense has been bad the rebounding has been worse we’ll dive a little bit more into the Pacers here in the next couple of weeks but the

Upside there they’ve had 187 possessions with Tyrese halberton and Pascal sakam on the floor together and in those possessions they are outscoring teams by 16 points per 100 possessions a 128 offensive rating which is like insane off the charts good in a 113 defensive rating which is perfectly fine it’s not

Great but it’s better than what they’ve been most of this season so without any further Ado let’s get to our power rankings number 10 the Sacramento Kings they finally seem to have gotten over their January slump they’ve won six out of seven games mostly on the road

They’re also ninth in defense over that span and 10th in defensive re rebounding there’s been a pretty consistent theme this year that when the Sacramento Kings actually commit to the defensive end they win it’s literally that simple as a matter of fact here’s a stat for you

When the Kings have held their opponents to 110 or fewer points this year they are 11 and3 and then they are 18 and 16 in all of their other games so that’s a trend to keep an eye on the rest of the way very very very much uh something

That I’m sure Mike Brown has been preaching to them throughout the season number nine the Milwaukee Bucks so after losing to the Jazz last night bucks are now one and three since stock Rivers became their head coach but it’s been the offense that’s failed them I actually think their defense statistic

It’s been right where it was before the coaching change right around a 116 defensive rating but on tape I actually am seeing some strides especially from the guards and just overall commitment I just think they ran into some bad matchups like Denver’s the defending Champion Utah and Portland are super

Young and have super fast guards which are like specific matchup issues for Milwaukee um it’s the offense that has failed them over this span they have typically they’re around a 120 offensive rating they’re at a 114 since Doc Rivers took over Dame was 5 for 18 again last

Night he just continues to just put these really putrid shooting nights up and so I’m not really worried about their offense in the long run so I think this is more of just like a a brief stretch of offensive slumping alongside with some bad matchups that have kind of

Caused that one and three start under Doc Rivers I tend to agree with Giannis I know it’s not pretty but I do think better times are on the horizon for the bucks number eight the Phoenix Suns rejoining our power rankings uh Bradley be had 43 last night in a win against

The Washington Wizards he’s been in the lineup for 20 straight games now and the suns are 14- six in those games and they actually won a game against Houston right before that so they’re 15- six in their last 21 games fifth best record in the league over that span that’s a

Fourth of the season that’s a hefty chunk of games they are also second in offensive rating over that span and 14th in defense pretty respectable there uh defensive rebounding still a little bit of a struggle for them I think they’re 23rd over that span Devin Booker also

Fully back to his Superstar form last 13 games 32 points five rebounds and six assists 54% from the field 40% from three and 87% from the line number seven the Oklahoma City Thunder had a bad loss in Detroit and then they dropped a tough one to Minnesota where Anthony Edwards

And Carl towns kind of just out executed them down the stretch and their their offense stalled against a very very good Minnesota defense but they did get back on track against the Nuggets without yic actually three and one against the Nuggets this year and then they beat Charlotte and Toronto as well the

Toronto game in particular was encouraging because Chad hrin Josh Giddy and Lou Dort all kind of got back on track after they’ been slumping for a little while and Chad in particular has been on track for about three games now he’s hit 10 threes in his last three

Games he’s averaging just under 20 points per game nine blocks over that span and double digit plus minus in all three of those games uh in in terms of the positive so Chad seems to be getting it back together got over that little slump that he was dealing with there in

January number number six the Cleveland Cavaliers undefeated week lighter stretch of their schedule but they did on Monday Notch a big win over against the Clippers really really good defensive effort really contained Paul George Well really contained James Harden well got out in transition we did

A whole Deep dive not just on that game but on everything going on with the Cavs with Carter Rodriguez from the chase down podcast last week on Wednesday went for like 45 minutes it was a long pod we did a lot of uh of Deep dive analysis on

The Cleveland Cavaliers make sure you check check that out a little bit further back on our feed number five the Minnesota Timberwolves so Chris Finch got on them the other night after losing to Orlando uh talking about forming some bad habits and and behaving like a 500

Team and if you zoom out they’re like it’s it’s actually kind of funny because actually look at this as like classic coaching just like really good motivational coaching trying to like just stay on his team because you got to think like Minnesota’s been outstanding all season and they have some specific

Things that Bode really well for for the postseason they have a huge front line they’re an elite defensive team they’ve got a tier one Superstar and in or at least a guy who could be a tier one Superstar and Anthony Edwards that can is pretty much on guardal in terms of

Getting to his spots it’s primarily decision-making and settling for him he’s got a little bit of the Jason Tatum itis where it’s like he is the best athlete on the floor but just takes a million pullup jump shots and he’s not particularly efficient with them but like really it’s been all it’s been

Mostly good and I think what happens is you end up in a stretch like this where it’s late January early February drop a couple games you shouldn’t have lost right like they lost to Charlotte that shouldn’t happen losing to Orlando at home probably shouldn’t happen losing to San Antonio probably shouldn’t happen

But they’ve been really really good they were really good against a tough schedule for a month before that this is just classic coaching got to stay on top of your guys got to keep them motivated make them feel like they’re in danger even when they’re not and that’s the

Best way to get a group to kind of do what the Clippers are doing which is just attack every single regular season game to M uh to maintain their habits one concern their offense kind of fell apart again late in the game against Orlando uh now like part of that’s

Orlando has this ridiculous defensive punch and when they really lock in they can be tough to score on but zoom out so one of my biggest concerns for the Timberwolves all season has been their late game execution they are 27th in fourth quarter offensive rating this season it’s been a major point of

Concern for me in terms of their playoff potential number four the New York Knicks injuries ended their niname winning streak against the Los Angeles Lakers who actually been playing some decent basketball as of late Julius Randall H hurt his shoulder then OG anobi had some elbow inflammation I

Actually have a funny story about this when I was living in Charlotte so this would have been like 2017 uh I I will never forget we we played in like a a men’s league game and the game went fine there was no issue but I woke up the next morning and I

Went to the gym to go shooting and I I start my shooting workout just going around the world uh um just like shooting from block to block to the foul line it’s just a way to kind of like warm up my elbow and like I went to

Shoot from the elbow in my I just felt this like excruciating pain in my right elbow and it ended up turning into this huge deal I had to wear like a brace for a while it was like really bad inflammation I think it might have actually been tennis elbow but like it

Was gnarly and it like straight up made me stop playing basketball for like a couple of weeks so like when I saw that I was like oh I hope OG’s not dealing with what I had uh back when I was in Charlotte cuz that like legit messed

With my jump shot for like the better part of like six months to a year so I I’m hopeful that they just get in front of that and just let his elbow whatever that inflammation is subside because it’s more important for him to be ready to go for the postseason I think we’ve

Already seen enough from this stretch since ogan and Obi joined the team to know that they’ve got a real physical imposition that they can bring to the table that they are a real playoff threat so there’s no reason to force it back take your time get healthy um

Jaylen Brunson last 10 games by the way 33 points per game four rebounds and seven assists on 52 37 84 splits so Jaylen Brunson playing at a superstar level right now he’s phenomenal in that Lakers game was drawing crazy double teams that was the only way the Lakers

Won was basically just a gimmick defense cha getting the ball out of his hands as obviously New York was playing with lesser players um but he was incredible down the stretch of the Indiana Pacers game as as well kind of insane how much of a hit uh Jaylen Brunson was as a free

Agent signing and how it changed really The Fortunes of that franchise number three the Boston Celtics couple hard-fought wins against the Pelicans and Pacers and then they drop a game to the Lakers without LeBron James and Anthony Davis and offense has been the main issue in their losses a 105

Offensive rating against Milwaukee a 99 offensive rating against the Clippers a 109 offensive rating against the Lakers and the big thing here is they’ve just leaned into uh to variance they’re attaching the fate of their season to variance they attempt 43 threes for 100 possessions that is by far the most in

The league and when they go in they beat the hell out of you and when they’re not going in they can be beat and it’s a I I just would like to see them add a little bit more variety to the way that they attack instead of Leaning so heavily on

Driving kick basketball and just hunting three point shots whenever they can just because I think it would give them a little bit more offensive resilience and I would look at some of these down offensive games especially against quality opponents as part of the concern there cuz it’s very clear that shooting

Is contagious for Boston when they lose their confidence when teams can kind of get them into one of those rough shooting nights they kind of sulk and it almost gets worse for them from there and like having another punch you can go to is actually a great way to mitigate a

Rough shooting night if you can lean into a different offensive identity whether it’s heavy heavy Jason Tatum in the post or whether it’s a you know uh uh of going to porzingis in the post or leaning more into pick and pop basketball with porzingis to try to get more Advantage situations like getting

Out of just leaning on just drive and kick threes and tough transition threes making it so that you have less variant could go a long way towards helping them have a little bit more resilience in those matchups number two the Denver Nuggets dropped a game to Oklahoma City

Without yit but they had an undef undefeated week outside of that another classic crunch time game against Milwaukee they completely out executed them down the stretch despite Doc Rivers throwing some pretty smart defensive coverages at them to try to mitigate their advantages the Nuggets now have the best clutchnet rating in the league

They’re outscoring opponents by 23 points per 100 possessions when the game is within five with less than five minutes left specifically on the defensive end they have been the very best clutch defense in the League this year and then last but not least number one the Los Angeles Clippers they

Dropped a tough game on the road to that red Cavs team like we talked about earlier but they bounced back and won the rest of their games the Clippers in my opinion this season to this point here at February 5th have showed the best combination of talent and

Basketball character that I’ve seen this year what that means is actual Firepower on the roster and commitment to the details from start to finish this season and I’m not just talking about like playing hard I’m even talking about playing smart leaning into their strengths practicing the things that will lead them home at

The end of the day I’ve been I’ve been so incredibly impressed by the Clippers it’s it’s it’s starting to look like kind of a like it’s starting to look like it’s their year in a lot of ways and at this point I think they belong at number one in the power rankings I’m

Like this close to moving them into that top tier of contenders with Boston and uh and Denver it’s it’s just been it’s been a hell of a year for the Los Angeles Clippers He

Jason Timpf drops his weekly power rankings which features the Los Angeles Clippers atop the NBA for another week. Jason explains how with the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks’ recent play, they could be on a collision course to meet up in the Eastern Conference Finals. Meanwhile, Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets have been consistent all year, and remain the championship favorites through the first half of the season.

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