After the Dallas Mavericks disposed of the Miami Heat for the second time last week, I boldly said they were the NBA's best team at the time. My opinion stood firm as they overcame 26 points and 23 rebounds from Dwight Howard to beat the Orlando Magic before taking a five-day break.
One of the commenters to the Magic story, "TheRealDirtyP1," urged me to "tap the breaks," pointing out that Dallas stood at No. 5 in the power rankings. Whose power rankings? Dunno. But as various websites have updated their rankings today, it appears as though the power rankings now support my claim.
Both ESPN and NBC handed the top spot to the Mavs, with ESPN ranking the Celtics, Spurs, Heat and Bulls behind Dallas and NBC rounding out its top five with the Spurs, Heat, Celtics and Thunder, who are up next for the Mavs tonight at 7 p.m. in Oklahoma City. (Assistant coach Dwane Casey takes over as head coach for one game as Rick Carlisle recovers from arthroscopic surgery.)
The team most noticeably left out of the top 5? The defending champs.
Ah, how the mighty have fallen as the Lakers were routed 96-80 on Christmas Day by the Heat.
So the question now is: Who's the second best team out there? I gotta go with the Heat, which bodes well for the Mavs since they've beat them twice already.
But perhaps you're not all that enamored with the trifecta of LeBron, D-Wade and Bosh. So, your thoughts, folks?
