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2012 NBA power rankings: OKC hangs with San Antonio, Memphis

The Oklahoma City Thunder remain third in the NBA power rankings, despite rolling through their opponents last week.

By Kevin Zimmerman
US PRESSWIRE

A loss to the Boston Celtics on Nov. 23 and gritty overtime win the next night against the Philadelphia 76ers has seemingly sparked the Oklahoma City Thunder. Scott Brooks's team went 4-0 last week as they dominated mediocre-to-bad competition, and sits behind only the San Antonio Spurs and Memphis Grizzlies in SB Nation's NBA power rankings compiled by Seth Rosenthal.

Oklahoma City's just been stylin' on inferior competition, and their defense -- bolstered by the increasingly vortical Russell Westbrook -- actually matched their sparkling offense at times over the last week.

The Thunder defeated the Charlotte Bobcats, Houston Rockets, Utah Jazz and New Orleans Hornets last week by an average of 25 points per game.

While the team failed to score below 100 points during that stretch, they more impressively gave up an average of 85 points per game thanks to that defense. The Rockets shot 41.4 percent from the floor against the Thunder, the best of any of the four teams OKC played last week.

Oklahoma City held Charlotte to 29.1 percent shooting in a 45-point rout on Nov. 26.