We kick off each week in the NBA by letting you know what’s been going well around the NBA—and what’s been falling apart:
RISING
1. The East playoff race. Major changes for the two teams battling it out for the bottom rung on the Eastern Conference postseason ladder have already begun paying dividends. In New York, the Knicks replaced coach Mike D’Antoni with assistant Mike Woodson, and not only did they stop a six-game losing streak, but they’ve reeled off three straight wins. And they did it in a weird way for a team that was turning from offensive mad-genius D’Antoni to defense-first Woodson: by pumping out 112.7 points per game over the course of that winning streak.
The Milwaukee Bucks, meanwhile, had started a scoring binge even before they acquired guard Monta Ellis, who dropped 18 points in his Milwaukee debut, a 120-98 bruising of the Warriors, Ellis’ old team. Another former Warrior, Mike Dunleavy, had a big impact in that game—he scored 24 points and is averaging 20.8 points over the Bucks’ current five-game winning streak. “We just kind of get into a groove of sharing the ball, and it gets contagious,” Dunleavy told reporters. “When that happens, you get games like that where there’s a lot of assists, guys are knocking down shots, in a rhythm, feeling good, and it’s great to be a part of.”
The Bucks have won five straight, and are a half-game behind the Knicks for the No. 8 seed.
2. The West playoff race. Winning streaks by the Phoenix Suns and Utah Jazz, coupled with so-so play from the Denver Nuggets, Dallas Mavericks and Houston Rockets, have left things even tighter in the West than they are in the East. There are 10 teams above .500 in the West, half of which are lined up to battle it out for the bottom three postseason seeds—Dallas is sixth, followed by Denver and Houston, with Phoenix and Utah a half-game out.
In fact, only two games separate the Suns and Jazz from the No. 6 seed.
“Yeah, we can get there,” Utah forward Paul Millsap said. “But we can’t sit there and pay attention to it. We have to take care of our business and just let everything else play out the way it’s going to play out.”
3. Michael Redd. Hard to believe, but the last time the U.S played in the Olympics, Redd was on the roster, a member of the Redeem Team that took gold in Beijing in 2008. Since then, it’s been a rocky road for Redd. He suffered a torn ACL in his left knee in ’09 and missed 49 games. He then tore the same ACL again a year later, missing 64 games. He got into just 10 games for the Bucks last year, his last with the franchise for which he had played 11 seasons.
But, like Grant Hill and Steve Nash before him, Redd seems to be finding some career rejuvenation in Phoenix here in his 30s. On Sunday, Redd scored 25 points in the Suns’ win over the Rockets, their fourth in a row, pulling them one game over .500.
Phoenix could use a good hot streak from Redd, who has struggled for most of the year and hadn’t made a 3-pointer since February 20 before knocking down two in Friday’s win over the Pistons. He was 10-for-13 from the field on Sunday, and
3-for-5 from the 3-point arc.
FALLING
1. Danny Granger’s mouth. The Indiana Pacers had won their second game in a row last Wednesday, a nice victory over the Sixers, when Granger was asked about a potential winning streak. Granger made the mistake of calling the Pacers’ upcoming home-and-home series with the Knicks “two very winnable games,” which they may well have been. But the Knicks got wind of Granger’s comments and used them as bulletin-board material. That helped make those winnable games quite lose-able, as the Knicks drubbed the Pacers in the two games by a combined 29 points.
2. Golden State Warriors. The trade that sent out Ellis and Epke Udoh for injured center Andrew Bogut and guard Stephen Jackson—who was then shipped to the San Antonio Spurs for Richard Jefferson—left some of the players in the Warriors locker room stunned, especially because the team had been playing better, Ellis was the leading scorer, and Udoh had shown significant improvement on both ends of the floor. Now, point guard Stephen Curry is out, too, and the Warriors can wave goodbye to their playoff chances.
In the long-term, if Bogut can get and stay healthy, the deal should work out for the Warriors, especially if things go so badly that they wind up finishing 24th in the league or worse. That’s because they owe this year’s draft pick to Utah, unless it falls in the top seven. The Warriors currently are the ninth-worst team in the league and would need to slide behind two others in order to guarantee that they keep their pick.
3. The Pistons in the fourth quarter. You might have a look at Detroit’s current road trip—a five-gamer through the West that wraps up in Denver on Wednesday—and figure that 1-3 is about right for a team that is not a factor in the East playoff race. But the frustrating thing for the Pistons is that they could easily be 4-0 on this trip, and they would be if games were 36 minutes long.
In each of the Pistons’ three losses, they have taken leads into the fourth quarter. They led by two in Utah before being drubbed in the fourth, 30-13. They led by one in Phoenix before the Suns out-finished them, 30-21. Then they led by eight in L.A. when the Clippers outscored them 30-18 in the fourth quarter and overtime. Down the stretch of those three losses, then, the Pistons were outscored, 90-52.
RANK ‘EM – NBA POWER RANKINGS
(last week’s rankings in parentheses)
1. Chicago Bulls (1).
2. Miami Heat (2).
3. Oklahoma City Thunder (3).
4. L.A. Lakers (4).
5. San Antonio Spurs (5).
6. Orlando Magic (7).
7. Memphis Grizzlies (8).
8. L.A. Clippers (6).
9. Denver Nuggets (10).
10. Atlanta Hawks (11).
11. Dallas Mavericks (15).
12. Philadelphia 76ers (9).
13. Indiana Pacers (12).
14. Phoenix Suns (16).
15. Houston Rockets (13).
16. Boston Celtics (14).
17. Milwaukee Bucks (21).
18. New York Knicks (22).
19. Utah Jazz (20).
20. Portland Trail Blazers (17).
21. Minnesota Timberwolves (18).
22. Golden State Warriors (19).
23. Detroit Pistons (24).
24. Cleveland Cavaliers (23).
25. Sacramento Kings (25).
26. Toronto Raptors (27).
27. New Jersey Nets (26).
28. New Orleans Hornets (28).
29. Washington Wizards (29).
30. Charlotte Bobcats (30).
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