East Conference

In a display which again proved that the Western Conference far exceeds the Eastern, nine of the 15 teams ended the week with losing streaks.

The worst of the lot was the New Jersey Nets, who continue fail on the hard-court as their losing streak stretched to nine. At the time they won only two of a total of 30 games. Close behind are last season’s headliners, the Detroit Pistons. The Pistons extended their losing streak to six with an 11-18 record, nothing to take comfort in.

Even as Allen Iverson eases into rotation, the Philadelphia 76ers are still finding favourable results hard to come by, winning just two of their last 10. After being early pace-setters the 76ers are still unable to record double-digits in their win column.

In contrast the Boston Celtics continue to show themselves as a team on a mission, as they recorded impressive wins after their slight setback a few weeks ago. In their Christmas Day encounter they powered to a comprehensive win over the Orlando Magic backed by a near triple-double from point-guard Rajon Rondo.

The Cleveland Cavaliers also ran out big winners on the day as they humiliated the Los Angeles Lakers at their sacred Staples Center. In a rare occurrence the Lakers had two men ejected from the game and also were at one stage booed by their home fans.

Laying claim to being one of the more influential players of the decade, Dwayne ‘D-Wade ‘ Wade is keeping his team in the running with a 15-12 league record. D-Wade continued to do good on Christmas Day by scoring 30 points in the second of back-to-back wins to end the week. The Atlanta Hawks continue to impress with a 21-8 record for fourth best in the East.

Portland blazing upward!

Western Conference

The Portland Trailblazers are easily the most in-form team of the conference thus far, winning four consecutive league games all over more “prominent teams”. Among their victims were the San Antonio Spurs and the Denver Nuggets last Friday. In the win on Friday, Roy scored an impressive 41 points with 25 coming in the first half to stretch the home record of the Trailblazers on Christmas Day to 13-1.

The Lakers suffered their first loss at home in over 10 fixtures to the Cavaliers but bounced back instantly with a double-overtime win over the Sacramento Kings.

The Denver Nuggets, despite having a comfortable lead against Portland, failed to hold on and as a result of the loss slipped to 20-10 from their first 30 games.

The Dallas Mavericks moved an entire game clear of the Nuggets by claiming a hard-fought 106-101 win over the in-sync Memphis Grizzlies. The Phoenix Suns continue to play atrocious basketball on the road as they suffered their seventh consecutive loss to the Golden State Warriors on Saturday. After a 124-93 win over the Clippers on Christmas Day they suffered a 132-127 loss to the Warriors.

The Oklahoma City Thunder are still hanging around in hope of a play-off berth much through the efforts of Kevin Durant. The Suns were amongst their victims as they won big on the road. The Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs and the Utah Jazz round up the top eight presently, with the Rockets being the more consistent in recent times.