NBA Week 2 Power Rankings: Cavs rise, Lakers bottom out

It’s hard to evaluate the Oklahoma City Thunder’s wins because two of them came over the LA Clippers. Those seem impressive, but as we already covered, the Clippers have had a really bad start to the season. Regardless, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is making a strong case to make the All-Star team, Jeremiah Robinson-Earl has been a savvy option as a small center, and their defensive effort under head coach Mark Daigneault has been great.

Well, this is not where we expected the Miami Heat to be. The loss of P.J. Tucker was expected to hurt them a bit in the playoffs, but they were supposed to continue rolling as a deep regular season team always capable of plugging in the next graduate of Heat University. Instead, they have racked up a ton of loss already with some major defensive wobbling from a usually stout group. The silver lining is they have played a tough schedule to begin – six of seven opponents are ranked in the top-15 of our list – but they need to figure some things out to be a contender in the East this year.

They need to figure some things out to be a contender in the East this year – that’s a phrase that applies to a few different teams. The Philadelphia 76ers have had a rough start of their own, with Joel Embiid looking out of shape and James Harden and Tyrese Maxey forming perhaps the worst defensive starting backcourt of the season thus far. They should right the ship and the path forward is clearer than other teams, but the transition and perimeter defense need to be addressed for the Sixers to have any shot when it matters.

The good for the New York Knicks is that they have already banked three wins in their first five, the right kind of start for a team trying to make the postseason. The better? They have been dominant in those wins, with an overall scoring margin of +5.2, fifth-best in the league. The best? Their only two losses are to the Milwaukee Bucks and Memphis Grizzlies. The bad? Their wins are against bad teams and the schedule is incredibly tough for the next two weeks. Still, it’s been as good of a start as Knicks fans could have expected thus far.

The Denver Nuggets are 4-2, but with a negative point differential. That’s because their two losses have been blowouts, and their wins have been of a more pedestrian variety. Still, they have played one of the league’s more difficult opening schedules thus far, and most likely they will jump up quite a few spots in these rankings over the next couple of weeks. Nikola Jokic is his usual dominant self and Bones Hyland has been energetic off the bench. Jamal Murray is still shaking off the rust of a long layoff.