Updated: January 2, 2013, 11:51 AM ET

Power Rankings: Clips still streaking

Week:
 
Team:
By Marc Stein
ESPN.com
Monday, Dec. 31

The first week of 2013 will be a seriously testing one for the Los Angeles Clippers. Sandwiched around a Friday night Staples Center showdown with the Los Angeles Lakers are two games against the newest team to crack the top five of ESPN.com's weekly NBA Power Rankings: Golden State.

But that's the future.

In the moment, riding the longest winning streak seen in the NBA since the 2008-09 Boston Celtics won 19 games in a row, Chris Paul and Blake Griffin's Clippers have comfortably made it to the 2012 finish line as our No. 1 for the second straight week, racking up four more wins to stretch their own unbeaten run to 17. The highlights: L.A.'s Christmas Day pounding of the Denver Nuggets ... and a 29-point rout of the Celts on TNT.

The Clips, according to Elias, thus became only the third team in NBA history to play an NFL season's worth of games in a single month and win them all. The only other teams to go undefeated in a month that featured at least 16 games are the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers and 1995-96 San Antonio Spurs.

The rankings, as always, were compiled with copious assisting from ESPN Stats & Information and the Elias Sports Bureau. Click here to rank the teams yourself.

Also, check out John Hollinger's daily Power Rankings.

2012-13 Power Rankings: Week 9
RANKTEAM / RECORD TRENDINGCOMMENTS
1
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Last Week: 1		Downgrade 'em if you feel you have to focus on the fact that only four of their 17 straight wins came against .500-or-better teams. I refuse. The Clips' eye-popping average point margin during the streak (15.2 ppg) and the sheer magnitude of winning that many games in a row precludes me.
2
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Last Week: 2		The NBA's most efficient offense, with the calendar about to be flipped to 2013, can be found in OKC: 110.1 points per 100 possessions. With Serge Ibaka likewise playing the best ball of his life, perhaps it's time to acknowledge that OKC didn't quite throw the season away when it dealt James Harden.
3
1
Last Week: 4		The Spurs are about as healthy as they've been all season. But they are also in the midst of a four-games-in-five-nights stretch, which means we'll all be watching Pop to see how he handles rest for his vets. One answer we already have: Gifts are not on his agenda this time of year.
4
Miami
20-8
1
Last Week: 3		The Heat uncorked a vociferous defense of Dwyane Wade after his one-game suspension for kicking out at Ramon Sessions, then played precious little D in dreadful weekend L's at Detroit and Milwaukee. So much for the notion that going on the road would get the champs properly plugged in.
5
4
Last Week: 9		Four of the Dubs' past five opponents shot 40 percent or worse from the floor. The Dubs went 12-4 in December to record the finest December in the franchise's Bay Area history. The Dubs have also reached the 20-win plateau before Jan. 1 for the first time since 1980-81. The Dubs, people!
6
1
Last Week: 5		It's been a back-to-Earth December for the Griz: 7-6 this month after that 12-2 start. The big worries: Memphis' top four players average 34-plus minutes nightly -- none of the teams above them rides its stars that hard -- and Rudy Gay and Mike Conley still lack of the consistency of the big men.
7
1
Last Week: 6		Who knew that the Knicks would be so banged up by the time Amar'e Stoudemire was finally ready to return that there's almost a clamor now to get him back in there and see how it all snaps together. P.S. -- Something tells me Raymond Felton's absence will a bigger issue than we think.
8
--

Last Week: 8		The Hawks' prospects didn't look all that great back on opening night, when they surrendered 45 points to James Harden and lost at home. Yet they enter Monday night's rematch in Houston with the best road record in the East at 8-4 ... while Joe Johnson and the Nets try to dig out of disarray.
9
Denver
17-15
2
Last Week: 7		We repeat: 15 of the Nuggets' first 18 games in 2013 are at home. Happy New Year, indeed. They'll live with No. 7 out West for now after a ridiculously road-heavy schedule and the fact that new deals for Ty Lawson and JaVale McGee (plus newly acquired Andre Iguodala) haven't quite panned out.
10
1
Last Week: 11		He still can raise eyebrows like no other on those nights when he decides to, say, hoist 41 shots, but let's also not forget that Kobe, at 34, had to do some seriously heavy lifting with Steve Nash out so long ... and averaged a handy 33.8 ppg, 5.6 rpg and 4.6 apg in December.
11
Chicago
16-12
1
Last Week: 10		We're always talking about what the Bulls are missing with D-Rose out. Let's divert from the script to wonder aloud about Chicago's suddenly crowded rotation at the 2 now that Rip Hamilton is back to share time with the better-than-expected Marco Belinelli and young swingman Jimmy Butler.
12
Indiana
17-13
1
Last Week: 13		Roy Hibbert had finally hiked his shooting for the season above the 40 percent mark. He's been at the heart of the league's No. 2 defense. You wanted to believe Hibbert was well and truly rebounding ... and then he could muster only one board -- with zero points -- in Saturday's loss at Atlanta.
13
Houston
16-14
1
Last Week: 12		James Harden has been living at the line as a nightly threat to score in the 30s all month, but routs absorbed in both OKC and Houston suggest that the Rockets -- as much as they'd love to make the playoffs -- would be best served avoiding the Thunder in Round 1 if they can at all help it.
14
2
Last Week: 16		Perhaps nothing sums up the hard-to-assess Bucks like the week they just submitted. Losses to the Cavs and the Pistons sandwiched home wins over Brooklyn and Miami -- Miami! -- that bumped Milwaukee to a seemingly promising 9-4 against the rest of the East's current top eight.
15
1
Last Week: 14		That it happened against struggling Phoenix dulls some of the shine, but it's still noteworthy that Sota, according to Elias, is the first team all season with all three members of its starting frontcourt (Nikola Pekovic, Andrei Kirilenko and, of course, Kevin Love) scoring 20-plus points in a non-OT game.
16
4
Last Week: 20		Who had J.J. Hickson averaging 13 and 11 and Terry Stotts' Trail Blazers over .500 and sitting four games ahead of Rick Carlisle's Mavericks at the turn of the year? No one in Dallas that I know of ... not even when you factor in the 27 games that Dirk Nowitzki had to sit out after knee surgery.
17
Utah
15-17
2
Last Week: 15		Only one team out there can boast that it managed to run up a double-digit lead on the Clippers during L.A.'s rep-changing run of 17 wins in a row. The Jazz have done it twice this month, actually, only for the Clips to win both games in SLC in a building that has long been a torture chamber.
18
1
Last Week: 17		Weak as the weekend comp was, seeing Brook Lopez rumble for 30.5 ppg and 11.0 rpg in interim coach P.J. Carlesimo's first two games reminds you that the forces behind Avery Johnson's demise really started to snowball when Lopez hurt his foot (again) so soon after the Nets' great November.
19
Toronto
11-20
3
Last Week: 22		A friendly stretch of schedule has undeniably been a factor in the Raps' revival, but a 35-point win on the road -- against anyone under any circumstances -- is one of the "wow" scores of the season. That rout in Orlando took Toronto to 9-6 when Jose Calderon starts, 2-13 when he doesn't.
20
Boston
14-16
2
Last Week: 18		Has anyone gone to go check on the Sports Guy? You're not seeing things: Boston really just did tour the West Coast and lose games by 29 (Clippers), 18 (Warriors) and -- gulp -- 22 (Kings). Gotta rewind to the pre-Larry Legend darkness of December 1977 for the last time that happened.
21
5
Last Week: 26		Have to say: As wild as the script was in that seesaw stunner Friday night that took down the Knicks, what we saw Sunday night in Sac-Town -- Boston getting a thorough beatdown and DeMarcus Cousins submitting a triple-double to make the Celts lust for him even more -- was just as crazy.
22
1
Last Week: 23		Jrue Holiday and Russell Westbrook are the only two players averaging at least 18.0 ppg, 8.0 apg and 4.0 rpg. Evan Turner is one of only four guys (joining LeBron, Durant and Marc Gasol) averaging at least 14, 6 and 4. That's as much comfort as we can offer with the four games left on Philly's trip.
23
Detroit
11-22
2
Last Week: 25		Good times in Motown. Back-to-back wins over high-quality (Miami) and playoffs-worthy (Milwaukee) opposition, Maccabi Tel Aviv alumnus Will Bynum posted back-to-back games with at least 25 points for the first time ... and Andre Drummond just snatched the league lead in rookie PER.
24
Dallas
12-19
3
Last Week: 21		The demise of the Cowboys will keep the locals occupied for another week or two at least. Then it'll start to hit folks that the Mavs' run of 12 consecutive playoff appearances is already in serious peril in a conference with so many unexpected teams (Warriors, Rockets, Blazers) to leapfrog.
25
Orlando
12-18
6
Last Week: 19		Think we all knew losing Big Baby Davis and his nightly 16 and 8 would be bad news for the Orlando Cinderellas. Yet I can't say that I remember hearing anyone, entering the final weekend of 2012, suggesting it would be lose-in-Washington-and-then-get-humiliated-at-home-by-Toronto bad.
26
Phoenix
11-20
2
Last Week: 24		An editor back in Bristol -- the same one obsessed with Andre Drummond -- pointed out to me that this might be the first season since the inception of the Mavericks in 1980-81 that neither Phoenix nor Dallas sees the playoffs. Just not sure why he thinks I'd lump those two teams together.
27
New Orleans
7-23
3
Last Week: 30		The Horlicans won two games last week. They won Saturday night after falling behind by 21 and without scoring a single fast-break point. They welcomed back the much-maligned Eric Gordon and promptly watched him score 24. I'd say they heeded our call to give us something to work with.
28
1
Last Week: 27		The Cavs with no Andy Varejao can be almost as hard to watch as the Kyrie-less Cavs. It's been six games and counting thanks to the robo-rebounder's bad knee, forcing them to focus on a few upsets so far (Clippers in L.A., don't forget!) and Tristan Thompson's five recent double-doubles.
29
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Last Week: 29		Combining Washington's much-needed home win over Orlando on Friday night after eight straight L's with Charlotte's utter collapse at home Saturday night against a Hornets team that was 2-13 in December coming in has finally given us license to banish the Bobcats to the rankings basement.
30
2
Last Week: 28		Michael Jordan's Bobcats have tried 41 times in 2012, over the course of two separate seasons, to notch win No. 8 of the season. And they're 0-for-41. They'd be advised to beat Cleveland on Friday or win Sunday at Detroit unless they want to make a run at the league record: 26 L's in a row.
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