(Last week’s ranking in brackets)<\/p>\n
1. (1) Los Angeles Lakers (49-12):<\/strong> Back-to-back losses in Denver and Phoenix are a bit worrying, but they’ve beaten the Cavs in their two meetings this year, which is why they’re still No.1.<\/p>\n 2. (2) Cleveland Cavaliers (48-12):<\/strong> The Cavs are on a roll ahead of their showdown in Beantown on Friday night against the Celtics, winning nine of their last 10.<\/p>\n 3. (3) Boston Celtics (48-14):<\/strong> The Stephon Marbury experiment should be a success in Boston, as their locker room is too strong to let him be a cancer. Now, to get KG healthy.<\/p>\n 4. (6) Orlando Magic (44-16):<\/strong> Dwight Howard showed a lot of heart by responding to Shaq with a big performance in a win over Phoenix. It’s his coach, Stan Van Gundy, who should’ve kept his mouth shut.<\/p>\n 5. (4) San Antonio Spurs (40-20):<\/strong> The Spurs have lost three of their last four, but they look to be on the verge of snagging Drew Gooden for a playoff run. These guys are a perennial sportsbook favorite when the going gets tough.<\/p>\n 6. (12) Portland Trailblazers (38-22):<\/strong> The Trailblazers are the week’s big movers, but tonight’s game in Denver could cause them to drop for next week.<\/p>\n 7. (5) Denver Nuggets (39-22):<\/strong> Losses in Indiana and Detroit, plus another suspension for Carmelo Anthony caused this drop. Tonight’s Portland game will be huge, from an NBA betting standpoint as well as for momentum.<\/p>\n 8. (8) Utah Jazz (38-23): <\/strong>Yes, they’ve won nine in a row, but only two of those have come on the road, and those were at Minnesota and Golden State. Let’s see how this five-game road trip goes before we start putting them among the online betting favorites.<\/p>\n 9. (7) Houston Rockets (39-23):<\/strong> The Rockets need to step up their game on the road to be considered an elite team. Still, their success without T-Mac is writing the oft-injured forward’s ticket out of town.<\/p>\n 10. (13) Miami Heat (32-28):<\/strong> Has one player meant more to any team’s hoops betting chances than Dwayne Wade? D-Wade may mess around and find himself with an MVP award.<\/p>\n 11. (10) New Orleans (37-22):<\/strong> How do you win five straight, yet drop a spot? Only one of those opponents has a winning record, and that’s Detroit by one game. David West is putting up almost 29 points over that period, but he needs to do it against big teams.<\/p>\n 12. (9) Atlanta Hawks (34-27):<\/strong> A first-round matchup between the Hawks and the Heat would be so entertaining to watch…let’s hope the standings stay the same.<\/p>\n 13. Dallas Mavericks (37-24):<\/strong> A tirade by their owner sparked a win over the Spurs. Does Mark Cuban have to publicly tear into the team before every game to raise their NBA betting chances? 14. (16) Detroit Pistons (30-29):<\/strong> Allen Iverson gets hurt, Rip Hamilton goes back in the starting five, and Detroit wins three in a row, including in Orlando and Boston. Coincidence? We think not.<\/p>\n 15. (11) Phoenix Suns (34-27):<\/strong> Their Florida trip yielded a pair of losses, and the Suns have games in Houston and San Antonio up next. But Shaq has been insanely entertaining lately, hasn’t he?<\/p>\n 16. (14) Philadelphia 76ers (29-30)<\/strong> Big moves by the Thunder and Bobcats among the league’s bottom-dwellers, but Oklahoma City still finds itself in a vicious battle with Memphis, Minnesota Sacramento and Washington to get the most ping-pong balls for the draft lottery. NBA betting players should have a field day with that.<\/p>\n There isn’t much change near the top of the NBA power rankings this week, as the NBA betting favorites for the championship have stayed essentially the same…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[11128,11130,11129,9709,5226,4299,4751,4234,66499,11127,4046,1014,1015,4025,8912],"class_list":["post-9203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nba","tag-bet-nba-hoops","tag-bet-nba-online","tag-bet-online-articles","tag-betonlinecom","tag-cavs","tag-celtics","tag-lakers","tag-magic","tag-nba","tag-nba-betting-online","tag-nba-power-rankings","tag-power-rankings","tag-power-ratings","tag-spurs","tag-trailblazers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9203","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\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9203"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107606,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9203\/revisions\/107606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
\n17. (22) Milwaukee Bucks (29-35)<\/strong>
\n18. (17) Chicago Bulls (28-34)<\/strong>
\n19. (24) Charlotte Bobcats (26-35)<\/strong>
\n20. (18) New Jersey Nets (25-35)<\/strong>
\n21. (21) Indiana Pacers (27-37)<\/strong>
\n22. (26) Oklahoma City Thunder (16-45)<\/strong>
\n23. (19) New York Knicks (25-35)<\/strong>
\n24. (20) Golden State Warriors (21-40)<\/strong>
\n25. (23) Toronto Raptors (23-39)<\/strong>
\n26. (27) Memphis Grizzlies (16-44)<\/strong>
\n27. (25) Minnesota Timberwolves (18-42) \u00a0<\/strong>
\n28. (28) Los Angeles Clippers (15-47)<\/strong>
\n29. (30) Washington Wizards (14-47)<\/strong>
\n30. (29) Sacramento Kings (13-49)<\/strong><\/p>\nFor more NBA Basketball lines and weekly hoops analysis, check out BetOnline.com >>><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"