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DC4
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POWER RANKINGS ( MARK STEIN )1 (1) Celtics 26-2 Are they peaking too soon? Won't they burn out? Can they stay healthy? Those are the only doubts left to voice about the Celts, now that we know the answer to all that will-they-be-hungry-enough stuff.
2 (2) Cavaliers 22-4 Whether or not LeBron is serious about signing an extension, just hearing him praise the "direction we are headed" -- coupled with a fat W in Denver -- had to make last week Cleveland's best week of the season.
3 (3) Lakers 21-5 Getting swept on a Florida back-to-back, losing Farmar to injury and heading into the Boston showdown with Bynum in a funk adds up to their worst week of the season. So how did they stay here? See next comment.
4 (4) Magic 21-6 Wanted to bump the Magic up to No. 3 after quality wins (at last) over the Blazers, Spurs and Lakers. If the Lakers weren't 10-3 against the rest of the top 15 -- closer than anyone to Boston's 9-1 -- we would have.
5 (7) Hornets 16-7 They are getting closer to the Hornets we expected to see. Since the wake-up call of a loss at Sacramento before Thanksgiving, CP3 and Co. are 11-2 . . . and the only losses were at Portland and at Boston.
6 (5) Spurs 16-10 Back-to-backs can indeed be unkind to the aging Spurs, but they don't have back-to-backs in the playoffs. So New Orleans' Byron Scott is still calling them "the other team to beat" out West, along with the Lakers.
7 (9) Rockets 18-9 Yao, T-Mac and Ron-Ron have all played in the same game only 17 times. So having six more road W's than home L's at this point -- tied for best in the West -- must make the Rockets pretty merry this Christmas.
8 (6) Nuggets 17-10 Figures. As soon as we rule that a 16-4 start with Billups earns him best-in-the-West status for the first third of the season -- over the likes of Kobe, Paul and Duncan -- Denver goes 0-for-3 against top-10 teams.
9 (10) Hawks 17-10 We indeed mentioned Mike Woodson with the top coaches in the Weekend Dime. But he probably deserves an extra mention here for his role in getting the Hawks on course for a top-four seed in the East.
10 (12) Trail Blazers 17-10 We probably had 'em too high at No. 4. We definitely had 'em too low at No. 12. And we boldly predict Portland will stay in the top 10 if Brandon Roy keeps scoring 36 a night, as he has over the past five games.
11 (13) Suns 16-11 Lost amid all the second-guessing surrounding D'Antoni's return was this recent observation from Terry Porter: "I really think we turned the corner." Looking at the Suns' past seven games, Porter might have a case.
12 (11) Jazz 17-12 Gotta be honest: We'd find it far more troubling, as a Jazz fan, to hear that Boozer's quad injury is still such a mystery than to hear about Boozer's unsurprising intent to become a free agent in July.
13 (8) Mavericks 15-11 You can say it's a bit too early to get too worked up about this, but sitting ninth in a playoff race with eight spots has the Mavs feeling some heat because they'll soon represent the city's only playoff hope.
14 (18) Heat 14-12 D-Wade has the Heat within one win of matching last season's 15 wins already . . . and Erik Spoelstra is suddenly tied for 17th in terms of longest active tenure among coaches. Talk about ahead of schedule.
15 (17) Nets 13-13 How did Devin Harris nudge ahead of studs like Millsap and Rondo in the MIP battle? Harris has scored 30-plus points in eight of his 23 games this season, after never doing so in his first four pro seasons.
16 (15) Bulls 13-14 With all the focus on Derrick Rose and the usual reams of Bulls-related trade chatter, no one even talks about this guy any more: Ben Gordon is averaging 22.0 ppg over the past 23 games after a quiet start.
17 (14) Pistons 14-11 Sundays could get even more problematic for a Pistons team that's already 0-6 on that day. Just imagine what it'll be like when the Lions aren't around to lose every week and soak up most of the local vitriol.
18 (20) Bucks 13-16 See what they did to the Knicks and the Clips? You have to go back to the committee's senior year of high school (April 10-11, 1987) for the last time Milwaukee won on consecutive days by 20-plus points.
19 (21) Pacers 10-17 The sort of info that only the Elias Sports Bureau can come up with: T.J Ford just scored the winning basket in the final 10 seconds of a game for the second time in his career ... both instances coming on Dec. 20.
20 (16) Knicks 11-16 Says D'Antoni: "I will be disappointed if we don't make the playoffs." Says the committee: Us, too. Knicks games are legitimately fun again ... and you already know how we feel about the temple that is MSG.
21 (23) 76ers 12-15 Ouch. Tony DiLeo was one bucket against Indy away from becoming just the third in-season hire in the past decade to start 4-0. The others are
L-Frank in Jersey in 2004 (13-0) and Skiles in Phoenix in 1999 (4-0).
22 (19) Grizzlies 9-17 Pau Gasol returns to Graceland on Monday night for the first time since going to Lakerland. Of greater local concern: It's the first of six games the Grizz still have to cram in between now and the end of 2008.
23 (25) Bobcats 9-19 We rarely hesitate to needle Larry Brown about his fickle ways, but he couldn't have looked much smarter when the kid he insisted on drafting -- D.J. Augustin -- outscored Derrick Rose 29-6 in last week's duel.
24 (22) Raptors 10-17 Anyone remember that 3-0 start? Even worse than the 7-18 record since then is the one-sided nature of the losing, even after a coaching change. The Raps' past 11 losses have come by an average of 13.9 points.
25 (24) Clippers 8-19 Just a theory: If the Clips didn't need double OT to win in Indy with Granger, Marquis Daniels and Troy Murphy all at the hospital with a bad flu bug, they might not have lost by 34 the next night in Milwaukee.
26 (28) Warriors 8-20 No one has been in the league longer than Jamal Crawford without making the playoffs, but somehow he's also one of just four players all-time to post a 50-point game with three different teams.
27 (27) Kings 7-21 How Kings prez Geoff Petrie must wish he had a Geoff Petrie on his roster. All of Roy's crazy scoring in Portland lately dredged up talk of the two 50-point games Petrie had for the Blazers in the 1972-73 season.
28 (26) Wizards 4-21 I'm guessing Eddie Jordan isn't missing this too much. The Wiz are just 3-11 under Ed Tapscott and just tied the worst 25-game start in franchise history, set by the 1966-67 Baltimore Bullets, who finished 20-61.
29 (30) Thunder 3-25 I'm guessing Scotty Brooks will happily endure all of these cracks about being the winningest coach in Thunder history -- at 2-13 -- if it means less talk about how his kiddies are still stuck on a dreaded 9-73 pace.
30 (29) Timberwolves 4-22 As if his 0-7 record and the prospect of a winless December weren't weighing on Kevin McHale, here's more what-if torture: Roy's look-at-me eruption in Portland started as soon as McHale returned to coaching.
POWER RANKINGS ( HOLLINGER )
