How about a little love for the Denver Nuggets?<\/p>\n
Burdened with a road-heavy early-season schedule, Denver stumbled out of the blocks before getting things together. Now, in the second half of the season the Nuggets have hit their stride \u2013 4 straight wins and 14 victories in an 18-game span that is noted for bookend victories over Oklahoma City. <\/p>\n
The Nuggets are now in the No. 5 playoff spot, with a good chance of catching No. 4 Memphis as the Grizzlies stare at a long stretch of road games this month.<\/p>\n
If the Nuggets move up a notch and earn home-court advantage (they\u2019re 25-3 at the Pepsi Center this season) in Round 1, maybe they could crash the Spurs-Thunder-Clippers party, or at the very least make everyone at the top very uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
1. HEAT (43-14)<\/strong> \u2013 It\u2019s time. Be honest. The way they\u2019re playing right now, no one can beat them in a 7-game series. 16. LAKERS (30-30)<\/strong> Larry’s NBA Power Ratings How about a little love for the Denver Nuggets? Burdened with a road-heavy early-season schedule, Denver stumbled out of the blocks before getting things together. Now, in the second half of the season the Nuggets have hit their stride \u2013 4 straight wins and 14 victories in an 18-game span that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":24926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[260,4977,22803,11586,22804,22805,57179,3126],"class_list":["post-60312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","tag-cappers-picks","tag-nba-power-ratings","tag-nba-power-ratings-online","tag-nba-rankings","tag-nba-ratings","tag-nba-team-power-rankings","tag-nba-weekly-power-rankings","tag-team-rankings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60312"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60508,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60312\/revisions\/60508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n2. SPURS (47-14)<\/strong> \u2013 Lots of home games this month provide a nice firewall as they deal with the absence of Tony Parker.
\n3. THUNDER (43-16)<\/strong> \u2013 Should be a fun week for Thunder fans, with games against the Lakers, Knicks, Celtics and Spurs.
\n4. GRIZZLIES (39-19)<\/strong> \u2013 Has any team in the history of the league been this good without even a 16-point-a-game scorer (Randolph is at 15.7)? And before you bring up Rudy Gay, the Grizz have won 9 of their last 10.
\n5. CLIPPERS (43-19)<\/strong> \u2013 I know the money is too big to pass up, but it just doesn\u2019t feel right seeing Chauncey Billups finish up his career as a backup.
\n6. NUGGETS (38-22)<\/strong> \u2013 Nuggets are 13-19 on the road. Danilo Gallinari has it figured out: “On the road,\u201d he says, \u201cthe other team scores too many points.” Oh.
\n7. PACERS (38-22)<\/strong> \u2013 Roy Hibbert steps up big time, paying a 35k fine that that teammate Lance Stephenson incurred by joining a fight that Hibbert started.
\n8. KNICKS (35-21)<\/strong> \u2013 Eight road games in the next three weeks for the NYK, who are actually halfway decent (14-12) outside the Garden.
\n9. HAWKS (33-25)<\/strong> \u2013 Three road wins in a row before losing at Phoenix (ugh) and LA Lakers. Tough to get a handle on this team, which can never seem to get over the hump.
\n10. NETS (34-26)<\/strong> \u2013 MarShon Brooks is a scorer ready to break out, but he\u2019s buried on the Brooklyn bench and gets less than 12 minutes a game.
\n11. BULLS (34-26)<\/strong> \u2013 Joakim Noah finally said what others are thinking \u2013 that Tom Thibodeau is putting too many miles on his starters\u2019 tires.
\n12. ROCKETS (33-28)<\/strong> \u2013 Also on the candor front: Jeremy Linn and Chandler Parsons are on record as saying that the Rockets don\u2019t exactly go belly button-to-the-wall every game.
\n13. WARRIORS (33-27)<\/strong> \u2013 Seven consecutive home games give the Warriors a chance to bail out the rowboat. If they don\u2019t get it done now, they could fall out of the playoff picture completely.
\n14. CELTICS (31-27)<\/strong> \u2013 Jeff Green is heir apparent when Paul Pierce retires, but Green plays much better without Rajon Rondo. What to do, what to do? [ad-6571516]
\n15. JAZZ (32-27)<\/strong> \u2013 Probably says more about Charlotte than Jazz, but Utah beat Hornets by 30 despite not having Al Jefferson or Paul Millsap available.<\/p>\n
\n 17. BUCKS (29-28)<\/strong>
\n 18. TRAIL BLAZERS (27-31)<\/strong>
\n 19. MAVERICKS (26-33)<\/strong>
\n 20. 76ERS (23-35)<\/strong>
\n 21. RAPTORS (23-37)<\/strong>
\n 22. SUNS (21-39)<\/strong>
\n 23. PISTONS (23-39)<\/strong>
\n 24. HORNETS\/PELICANS (21-39)<\/strong>
\n 25. KINGS\/SONICS (21-40)<\/strong>
\n 26. TIMBERWOLVES (20-36)<\/strong>
\n 27. WIZARDS (19-39)<\/strong>
\n 28. CAVALIERS (20-39)<\/strong>
\n 29. MAGIC (16-44)<\/strong>
\n 30. BOBCATS (13-46)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"