2023-24 NBA Power Rankings: Stretch run begins with Celtics back on top

National Basketball Association

Updated Feb. 20, 2024 5:48 p.m. ET

While it has been a couple of days since the NBA went on its annual All-Star hiatus, the FOX Sports NBA power rankings committee has not forgotten who came barreling into the break and who limped into it.

The Boston Celtics enter the final third of the season back in the No. 1 spot, thanks to the league’s overall best record and current longest winning streak — six games and counting.

The Western Conference-leading Minnesota Timberwolves are right behind them in second. The last we saw of them, they were silencing home crowds, dismantling the third-ranked Los Angeles Clippers in front of their own fans and then crushing the Portland Trail Blazers twice at home as well.

All that dropped the Cleveland Cavaliers, the No. 1-ranked team for the previous two weeks, to third. The Cavs had a near disastrous two-game homestand, falling to a struggling Philadelphia 76ers‘ team without Joel Embiid and escaping with a three-point win over the Chicago Bulls, secured, in part, by a foul in the final minute on the Bulls’ Alex Caruso that crew chief Ed Malloy said afterward should not have been called.

The Clippers had a humbling week as well. After their 21-point loss at home to the Timberwolves, they visited the Golden State Warriors and trailed by as many as 14 in the fourth quarter before mounting a furious comeback for a 130-125 win, outscoring Golden State 44-28 over the final 12 minutes. Combined with previously sixth-ranked Oklahoma City notching a decisive win in Orlando over the Magic, the Clippers dropped two spots, from third to fifth.

The damage might’ve been worse if not for the spiral of two other top teams, the New York Knicks and Denver Nuggets. The Knicks dragged themselves into the break with a season-high four-game losing streak, falling to both the Houston Rockets and Magic last week. The Nuggets bracketed a beatdown at the hands of the Milwaukee Bucks with a pair of losses to the Sacramento Kings.

No one took greater advantage of all that than the Dallas Mavericks, who have surged since unloading Grant Williams at the trade deadline and adding frontline defense in P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford. Their six-game winning streak has moved them up to sixth, their highest ranking of the season, as the stretch run begins.

NBA Power Rankings

Ric Bucher is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. He previously wrote for Bleacher Report, ESPN The Magazine and The Washington Post and has written two books, “Rebound,” on NBA forward Brian Grant’s battle with young onset Parkinson’s, and “Yao: A Life In Two Worlds.” He also has a daily podcast, “On The Ball with Ric Bucher.” Follow him on Twitter @RicBucher.

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