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For the second week in a row New York's two basketball teams are back-to-back in the SB Nation NBA power rankings. But there was a little bit of a change as the Brooklyn Nets moved up two spots, jumping ahead of the stagnant New York Knicks in this week's rankings.
A week after their inter-borough victory, the Brooklyn Nets moved up to No. 5 in the latest power rankings. The Nets (11-5) also had wins on the road against Boston and Orlando this week to go along with a loss to the Miami Heat. SB Nation's Seth Rosenthal wrote this about Brooklyn's move up in the rankings and strong recent play:
The lockdown D we saw in that impressive win over the Clippers last week may not have been an accident. The Nets built their five-game win streak out of shattering defense that buoyed them until right around halftime of the streak-ending loss in Miami. After that collapse, it'll be very interesting to see how they handle the Thunder offense on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Deron Williams hasn't been shooting well, but his ability to thread passes to open friends has ignited some genuinely impressive ball movement in Brooklyn's staunchly slow-paced offense that keeps flowing even when he's off the floor.
The Knicks also went 3-1 over the last week, but remained in the same No. 6 spot as last week. After starting off with the loss to the Nets, the Knicks rattled off victories over Milwaukee, Washington and Phoenix, improving to 12-4 on the season. About the Knicks, Rosenthal wrote:
They're handling themselves well enough without the surprisingly massive influence of Jason Kidd, though a hand injury to Raymond Felton may test their backcourt depth (and/or accelerate the takeover of ¡Pablocura!) even further.
To see where other teams around the league were ranked, you can read Rosenthal's full NBA power rankings here.