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NBA Power Rankings November 19, 2021

By Andrew Hales, Assistant CouchGM

CouchGM’s weekly NBA power rankings, in order of descending championship probability. Power rankings will be published weekly on Fridays with each week’s update to the model. Listed below is each team's current championship probability, change in ranking vs last week, and last week’s championship probability.

The Top-5

Rank	Team	Current Probability	Change	Last Week Probability
1	Golden State Warriors	12.62%	0	9.95%
2	Utah Jazz	9.95%	0	9.47%
3	Brooklyn Nets	8.14%	0	7.57%
4	Miami Heat	7.41%	+10	3.91%
5	Philadelphia 76ers	5.36%	-1	7.57%

The top 3 are unchanged, and with good reason. Golden State and Utah both went undefeated since our last rankings on Sunday, and Brooklyn’s only loss was to Golden State. Steph Curry looks like the Steph Curry he’s always been, leading the league in scoring again this year like he did last year. He now has 85 made 3’s this season in only 15 games, 20 more than the next highest (Buddy Hield) and 31 more than 3rd place (Grayson Allen). Good team 3 point shooting has been a prerequisite for winning the Finals for the past decade so naturally his team is on top. It’s hard to not buy into the hype that they will get better if Klay Thompson comes back and is anything close to his old form.

Miami is the surprise jump, most in the league, up 10 spots from last week’s rankings. They had that tough road trip last week with close losses to the Lakers and Clippers on national TV, but have since ran off 4 in a row, including wins at Utah and a 15 point trouncing of the formerly top seed in the east, the Washington Wizards. Those losses were without Jimmy Butler, and right now it's the Heat and Nets tied for the east lead with Chicago and the Wizards hot on their tail.

6-10

Rank	Team	Current Probability	Change	Last Week Probability
6	Phoenix Suns	5.14%	-1	4.95%
7	Los Angeles Clippers	4.59%	-1	4.85%
8	Chicago Bulls	4.13%	+2	3.82%
9	Milwaukee Bucks	3.36%	+2	3.80%
10	New York Knicks	3.20%	-1	4.06%

Phoenix is on a 10 game winning streak, something that hasn’t happened in over a decade, yet they fall in the rankings because they haven’t exactly been blowing teams out. They’ve had to grind out wins, and there’s definitely something to be said about that. On the front end of this streak they had some “ugly” wins. They were down double digits in 3 of the first 4 games but have been finding the groove in the last half. In April all we’re going to see is how many wins they have, and good teams find ways to beat bad teams even on an off night, which the Suns are doing. A 4 game east coast road trip starts on Monday.

Chicago is slowly and steadily moving up. They’re only a half game out of first place, the spot they occupied for a few weeks before choking away the game in Portland. They’ve been a pleasant surprise (and this Assistant GM’s pick for most underrated team) and have looked good doing it with the league’s 5th best point differential.

Milwaukee had a statement primetime win against the Lebron-less Lakers, and Giannis has Stephen A. Smith questioning how good Anthony Davis is. I see a run coming for the Bucks with a weak schedule this week and Khris Middleton back after missing several games due to covid.

11-20

Rank	Team	Current Probability	Change	Last Week Probability
11	Portland Trail Blazers	2.81%	+1	3.16%
12	Denver Nuggets	2.71%	+1	3.15%
13	Charlotte Hornets	2.67%	-5	4.13%
14	Atlanta Hawks	2.54%	+3	2.09%
15	Dallas Mavericks	2.53%	0	2.45%
16	Washington Wizards	2.29%	-9	4.77%
17	Memphis Grizzlies	1.83%	+6	1.65%
18	Boston Celtics	1.75%	0	1.89%
19	Los Angeles Lakers	1.74%	-3	2.37%
20	Sacramento Kings	1.73%	0	1.56%

Washington has the biggest drop in the league this week. They lost two games that weren’t that close in the 4th quarter at Charlotte and at Miami, and next week they play at home against both of them. Let’s see how well they respond on their home floor. 4 of their next 5 games after that are against basement dwellers so they should stay towards the top of the standings.

Portland seems like they are Damian Lillard away from going on a big run. They play in the west so their schedule doesn’t have anything easy coming until the end of the month, but if/when Lillard snaps out of his funk I think the whole team will elevate. Maybe the comeback against the Bulls was what will start their run.

The Bottom-10

Rank	Team	Current Probability	Change	Last Week Probability
21	Minnesota Timberwolves	1.72%	0	1.71%
22	Toronto Raptors	1.65%	-2	1.85%
23	Cleveland Cavaliers	1.57%	-1	1.71%
24	Indiana Pacers	1.49%	-4	1.75%
25	San Antonio Spurs	1.21%	0	1.40%
26	New Orleans Pelicans	1.21%	0	1.30%
27	Oklahoma City Thunder	1.13%	+3	1.03%
28	Orlando Magic	1.12%	-1	1.15%
29	Detroit Pistons	1.06%	-1	1.10%
30	Houston Rockets	0.97%	-1	1.07%

Minnesota has 2 wins in a row and are hanging around the play-in tournament line. They had a chance to beat the Suns in the game before that so maybe they’re figuring it out.

Toronto had a rough week, losing to the Pistons, blowing a lead against the Blazers, then having 2 days off and losing by 16 to the Jazz. Their 6 game west coast road trip continues next week against Sacramento, Golden State (gulp), Memphis, then Indiana. Fingers crossed for you guys.

Our model doesn’t think highly of Oklahoma City even though they are currently 6-8. Their -7.1 point differential implies they are winning close games and getting blown out of the rest, but like I said about the Suns - a 1 point win counts the same as a 30 point win. I wonder if this is lingering clutch experience from 2 years ago when they made an unexpected playoff run led by Chris Paul? Has SGA taken that over and just needs more pieces around him to get them to clutch time with a chance?

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