Power Rankings: Jazz, Rockets and Hornets moving up

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By Marc Stein
ESPN.com

The Los Angeles Lakers' run of Mondays atop ESPN.com's weekly NBA Power Rankings has been stretched to five in a row.

Yet there is a fair bit of movement in this week's top 10.

Utah (No. 7 to No. 5), Houston (No. 8 to No. 7) and New Orleans (No. 10 to No. 8) all are rising, with San Antonio taking a rare dip out of the top five (to No. 6) and Denver sliding to its lowest position since Week 2 ... which was the week the Nuggets acquired Chauncey Billups.

The Boston Celtics have also moved up one slot, bumping Cleveland down to No. 3 with a victory over the Cavs on Friday night.

You can click here to rank the teams yourself or click here to comment.

Also, check out John Hollinger's daily Power Rankings.

Tune in Tuesdays to "NBA Fastbreak" on ESPN to see this week's U.S. Army Power Rankings. The Hornets are the U.S. Army Team of the Week after posting three more wins to remain undefeated since reacquiring and reactivating Tyson Chandler.

2008-09 Power Rankings: Week 19
RANK (LAST WK) TEAM REC. COMMENT
1 (1) Lakers 50-12 Will the first team to win 50 also be the first to win 60? Depends on how much damage L.A. can do on its travels, with the Lakers looking at 10 of their next 13 games on the road between now and April 1.
2 (3) Celtics 49-15 Even if the Celts squander home-court advantage to the Cavs and wind up playing Orlando in the second round, Boston's final 18 games will be a success if KG and Rondo are both healthy for the playoffs.
3 (2) Cavaliers 49-13 It should be fairly clear by now why we keep talking so much about home-court advantage in the East. This season and last, including the playoffs, Cleveland is 6-0 at home against the Celts. And 0-8 in Boston.
4 (4) Magic 46-16 Forget all the Shaq stuff. This week's real SVG story is why the coach chose to loudly lament the media's supposed lack of respect for his team right after it nearly blew a 22-point lead to the injury-riddled Celts.
5 (7) Jazz 40-23 You could make the case that we should have nudged Utah into the top five sooner than this. You might be right, too. The Jazz are a tidy 14-1 since Feb. 1, which is only the league's best record in that span.
6 (5) Spurs 42-20 The good news: Tony looks better than ever. The not-so-good news: Manu will be out another week to two weeks and Timmy told us that he doesn't expect to get any closer to 100 percent than he is now.
7 (8) Rockets 41-23 Twelve consecutive wins at home. A solid 9-2 since T-Mac shut it down for the season. Add it up and you've got another team that believes it should have nudged past Denver sooner than this particular Monday.
8 (10) Hornets 39-22 Anyone else get the feeling that the Hornets -- 7-0 since the Tyson Chandler trade was undone -- have convinced themselves that this group might not be together much longer and needs to make a run now?
9 (6) Nuggets 40-24 We're guessing that the Nuggets will learn to live with losing their treasured No. 6 perch after slotting there for 11 of the past 13 weeks. The bigger worry: We're also guessing that their division lead is gone for good.
10 (9) Trail Blazers 39-23 Who says we never see the positives in Portland? Here's a biggie: TrueHoop's Blazers have rallied to victory from 13 double-digit deficits, which is tops in the league ahead of New Jersey's 11 such comebacks.
11 (12) Mavericks 38-25 J. Terry looks all the way back, but now J. Howard is out again. Throw in the two games Dallas still has with Phoenix and you can see why a four-game gap between Nos. 8 and 9 in the West isn't as fat as it looks.
12 (13) Hawks 35-28 Even in Detroit's .500 state, Atlanta's sweep of the teams' three meetings is a stunner. The Hawks enjoyed just three previous 4-0 season sweeps (Cavs in 2002-03, Pacers in 2005-06 and Knicks in 2007-08) this decade.
13 (15) Heat 33-29 On second thought, D-Wade does believe he's at or near the top of the MVP race. Then there's the debate-free race: Wade's got nine 40-point games, with LeBron at seven and Kobe and Dirk both at four.
14 (11) Suns 34-29 Don't think Stro Swift makes much of a difference in these desperate desert times. Don't think making the playoffs necessarily makes things better, either, with a first-round series against the Lakers as the reward.
15 (16) Pistons 31-30 Everyone says it was Rip's move to the starting lineup and/or Iverson's absence that has sparked the Pistons. Don't discount the impact this depressing tome by my editor Royce Webb had in the turnaround.
16 (19) Bobcats 28-35 We repeat: Larry Brown is doing in Charlotte what we all expected him to do in New York. The underdog Bobcats are having their best season ever ... with only seven guys from training camp still on the roster.
17 (14) Bulls 29-34 Can the inconsistent Bulls find a way to make it into the playoffs if Deng misses most or all of the rest of the regular season? Can you tell us first exactly how many wins it'll take to nail down the No. 8 spot in the East?
18 (17) Pacers 28-37 Since we've pretty much established that this team, now 9-4 sans Granger, is near impossible to figure out, let's assess another curiosity: Is Troy Murphy having the best season absolutely no one's talking about?
19 (21) Nets 28-35 Make that four double-doubles in five games for Devin Harris, who might be getting a second wind for a team that definitely needs it. Is it still a breakout season for the ages if Devin's Nets fall short of the playoffs now?
20 (20) Bucks 30-36 Can't get over this line that has popped up on the site a few times lately: Cleveland's reacquisition of Joe Smith means that the Cavs gave up only Damon Jones to steal Mo Williams from the cash-strapped Bucks.
21 (18) 76ers 30-31 There's only one course of action after a bad road defeat to the Durant-less Thunder. Someone get Pat Croce on the phone and see if he'll make a cameo to deliver a Cubanesque rip job of the sliding Sixers.
22 (22) Knicks 25-37 David Lee's run of 24 double-doubles in a row perished over the weekend, when losses to two teams they still need to leapfrog -- Charlotte and New Jersey -- might have simultaneously killed off the Knicks' playoff dreams.
23 (25) Thunder 17-46 Only one problem with all the slobbering here and elsewhere about the Durant we saw last month: OKC is 4-1 without him, after going 3-9 in February, having held the opposition to 92 points or fewer in all four W's.
24 (23) Raptors 23-41 You know how we've been saying for weeks that the Wiz are the only Easterners out of the playoff hunt? Probably can't say so any more after five straight Ls and a 6½-game deficit with 18 to play for my Raps.
25 (24) Warriors 21-42 There have been 11 games this season where the losing team has scored at least 120 points. You probably won't be surprised to hear that those crazy Dubs have taken five of those losses and inflicted three of them.
26 (26) Timberwolves 18-44 It appears that their season ended when Big Al suffered his season-ending knee injury. All we can do now, with the Wolves at 1-11 since, is use the next few Mondays to keep lobbying McHale to come back as coach.
27 (30) Kings 14-49 Maybe they won't beat an Eastern Conference team all season (now 0-24). Maybe they won't win 10 games under interim coach Kenny Natt (who's 8-31). Maybe messing up Denver (on Sunday) is as good as it gets.
28 (29) Grizzlies 16-46 Griz historians surely already know this, but we wanted to make it common knowledge that the L to Philly was the first time ever that the Griz got 30 points in the same game from their PG (Conley) and C (Marc Gasol).
29 (28) Wizards 14-49 Wednesday's loss to Oklahoma City was a bigger deal than you would think. OK, OK ... maybe that's stretching it. But it did leave the Wiz as the only team this season without a single three-game win streak.
30 (28) Clippers 15-48 I agree with what the scout said in the Weekend Dime. The Clips do trump Toronto for Most Disappointing Team status on this scorecard ... excluding Gordon and the five 30-point games he has racked up as a rookie.

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