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This, for a change, was simple. Where's the fun in that?

For the first time since the preseason, there was zero internal debate at Stein Line HQ in assembling the latest edition of the ESPN.com NBA Power Rankings. The Boston Celtics wholly deserved to be No. 1 four of the past five Mondays, having mowed through a much more taxing workload than their closest rivals in that span, but some slippage last week from the Los Angeles Lakers while the Celtics were avenging a rare loss at Indiana -- twice -- didn't allow us to even consider alternatives.

The only uncertainty at the top was whether to bump scorching Cleveland up to No. 2, in the wake of the Cavs' record-setting eight straight wins by at least 12 points. But the Lakers -- having already amassed seven wins against top-10 opposition to Cleveland's two -- managed to hold on. Dallas, meanwhile, moved into the top 10 for the first time in the regular season by virtue of having gone 9-1 since its 2-7 start, with only a narrow road loss to the Lakers to blemish its recovery.

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

Tune in Tuesdays to "NBA Fastbreak" on ESPN to see this week's U.S. Army Power Rankings. The Mavericks are the U.S. Army Team of the Week after beating Phoenix and Atlanta to move to a season-high No. 8.

2008-09 Power Rankings: Week 6
RANK (LAST WK)		TEAM	REC.	COMMENT
	1 (1)	Celtics	20-2	Two things that absolutely, positively cannot be disputed this Monday: Boston is a unanimous No. 1, and the gap between the top three and everyone else is only growing after what the Celts did to Portland.
	2 (2)	Lakers	17-2	We say there's more to life than victory margin, but those of you obsessed with it will note that L.A. is down to No. 2 there, too, after blown leads in Indy and D.C. gave the (underrated?) Cavs an opening.
	3 (3)	Cavaliers	17-3	I know you're wondering what the Cavs have to do to move up after eight straight wins, none closer than 12 points. It's a valid question, as is this one: Will they still be unbeaten at home when Boston arrives Jan. 9?
	4 (4)	Trail Blazers	15-7	So Boston trounced the league's young darlings. So what? The Blazers' response, a one-point W in Toronto, was notable. It moved Portland to a league-leading plus-8, with eight more road wins than home losses.
	5 (6)	Magic	15-5	The prospect of a five-game trip out West typically would unsettle a team missing a starter (Pietrus). The atypical, road-loving Magic -- with Nelson and Bogans back early from injury -- probably are looking forward to it.
	6 (5)	Nuggets	14-7	Let's go out on a limb and suggest that the Nuggets -- geeked as they are to be 13-4 with Chauncey -- still would prefer to avoid seeing the Spurs in the first round of the playoffs (again) after Thursday's encounter.
	7 (7)	Rockets	13-7	The Rockets should get through the next two weeks without T-Mac, with five of the next seven games against the dregs of the West. Yet we wouldn't dare predict when you'll see these guys at full strength. If ever.
	8 (14)	Mavericks	11-8	When J.J. Barea first got to town, teammates jokingly called him ''Rudy.'' Jason Terry, to this day, still mistakenly calls him "Barrera." One more true Barea story: You could call him the Mavs' MVP in December.
	9 (8)	Spurs	11-8	The excellence we expect from the Southwest Division hasn't been fully restored, but the recent returns to the vicinity of normalcy by the Spurs and Mavs have the SW at 51-44 overall, trailing only the 57-44 Atlantic.
	10 (10)	Hornets	11-6	For all the panic about the Hornets' lack of a bench, over-reliance on Chris Paul and slow starts by the likes of Peja and Chandler, here's the flip side: 11-6 is right where last season's division champs were 17 games in.
	11 (9)	Nets	11-8	Go ahead. Blame us for that 20-point home loss to the Wiz. Maybe a bump all the way up to No. 9 -- even for a team with one of the five best road records (7-3) -- was too aggressive and thus somewhat jinx-y.
	12 (11)	Hawks	12-7	The Hawks are bound to be offended to be lumped in with the Nets and Heat, but they have to rank as one of the East's bigger surprises at the quarter mark, having started out 6-0 and hanging in without Josh Smith.
	13 (12)	Suns	12-9	It should come as some semblance of relief to the freaked-out desert dwellers that we can't drop the Suns too far, even in the midst of such a deep funk, because they're not alone in their early season soul-searching.
	14 (15)	Jazz	13-9	The irony will be thick Tuesday night in 'Sota when the Wolves will have a new coach on the bench. It'll also be the night Jerry Sloan marks his 20th anniversary as Jazz coach, which is the longest run going in pro sports.
	15 (13)	Pistons	11-8	The good news: McDyess returns this week. The bad news: The Pistons are almost as bad as the Lions on Sundays, at 0-5 compared to 11-3 on all other days. The worst news: Detroit has 11 Sunday games to go.
	16 (18)	Heat	11-9	Phoenix didn't dress Nash. Boozer and Kirilenko sat for Utah. But those are still huge road wins for the Heat when you recall that they won all of six road games in 2007-08 ... and didn't see win No. 11 until Feb. 29.
	17 (20)	Pacers	7-13	Best sub-.500 team in the league? The Pacers would rather be known as Indy .500, obviously, but it's not the worst consolation prize for them to be 1-0 against the Lakers and a 1-2 (with an OT loss) against Boston.
	18 (16)	Bulls	9-11	You're going to have to wait for our first Trimester Report to get us into a ROY-to-this-point discussion. Yet you can safely assume that we've decided to bring this up here because of someone Chicago-based.
	19 (21)	Bucks	9-13	Friends asked us why we gave so much space to the D-League in a recent Weekend Dime. One reason: To be ahead of the curve on discovering the next Ramon Sessions, whom we hold in almost Redd-like esteem.
	20 (19)	Knicks	9-11	We're super into brash quotes, so all the room we have goes to replaying this one after Al Harrington helped the Knicks down Detroit: ''Let me tell you something about me, man. I'm a super confident dude at all times.''
	21 (17)	Raptors	8-11	Maybe it wasn't the most painful way to start his interim tenure, but it had to be close for Triano: Toronto was routed at Utah in the first game after the coaching change, then edged at home by one against Portland.
	22 (22)	76ers	9-12	Three new crises for the disappointing Sixers: Elton Brand's hamstring, four straight L's at home after a 5-2 start ... and a non-sellout when the Lakers, led by a certain Philly native named Kobe, came to town.
	23 (23)	Bobcats	7-13	The Bobcats' next five games are against teams with winning records, four of them on the road. Which figures to put the focus back on the trade talk that's been a staple of Larry Brown's first season in Charlotte.
	24 (29)	Wizards	3-15	Going 2-5 under the new guy doesn't sound like much of an improvement, but the Nets (throttled at home by Team Tapscott) and the Lakers (one shot away from a humbling road collapse to the Wiz) might disagree.
	25 (28)	Grizzlies	5-15	Can we really draw a line under ninth place in the West and rule out every team below it from the West's playoff race? Already? Don't we need a name for such a line? Let's ask the Grizz first, since they're closest to it.
	26 (26)	Clippers	4-16	The goal, sayeth Baron Davis, is a .500 record by All-Star weekend. The reality, according to the schedule, is that the Clips would have to go 23-10 between now and then, with 18 of those 33 games on the road.
	27 (25)	Warriors	5-15	The schedule hasn't helped, true. But you can blame only so much on the Dubs playing 14 of 18 games on the road when the defense gives up (gulp) 124, 119, 112, 138, 130, 131 and 123 in a seven-game span.
	28 (27)	Kings	5-16	The race is on between the Kings and the Grizzlies, now that Minnesota has sacked Wittman. Which Western Conference straggler can keep its coach employed longer: Sactown or Memphis? Who you got?
	29 (24)	Timberwolves	4-15	While we'd prefer not to be the ones to try to teach Love this lesson, we simply can't allow him to be duped into thinking the Wolves have hit "rock bottom," as he puts it. It's too soon to make that claim, sadly.
	30 (30)	Thunder	2-19	We suppose all this losing will be forgotten by the patient locals if they get Oklahoma's Blake Griffin ... but what if they don't? The league's worst record, remember, nets only a 25 percent chance of lottery triumph.