NBA Power Rankings Shake-Up: Which Surprising Teams Are Rising as Playoffs Loom?

Solid Playoff Teams Without Real Title Equity

13. Houston Rockets

12. Miami Heat

11. Orlando Magic

10. Atlanta Hawks

This group is filled with teams that should be playing in a first round series, but don’t have the juice to do anything more than maybe win a playoff series. The Houston Rockets may have the most wins of any team in this group, but they play in the tougher conference and just have not been the same since Steven Adams went down with a season-ending ankle injury. The Miami Heat continue to win games in Heat ways (running more zone than any team in the league!). However, they don’t have enough offense or size/physicality to be a true threat, as we saw in their recent loss to the Orlando Magic. What will surprise a lot of people is the decision to put the Atlanta Hawks over the Orlando Magic in our power rankings, despite the latter being higher than the former in the standings. The Hawks are winners of eleven straight games (!!). That is tied for the third-longest streak of the year (all the other teams ahead of them are still yet to be listed on these power rankings). Most of these wins are against The Tankers, but they did just put the hurting on the Magic in a key home victory. What makes them so dangerous is how good their starting lineup is. When CJ McCollum, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Dyson Daniels, Jalen Johnson, and Onyeka Okongwu share the floor together (456 non-garbage time possessions), the Hawks are outscoring teams by 31.1 points per 100 possessions. That is the highest mark of any five-man combination that has played at least 300 possessions this season (per Cleaning the Glass).