NBA Power Rankings Week 21: Milwaukee Bucks won’t match Warriors

Last week: Beat Toronto 133-118, lost to Golden State 116-100, won at Charlotte 114-112, lost at Cleveland 104-102

This week: Monday vs. Milwaukee, Wednesday at Dallas, Friday at San Antonio

Were I a gambling man, the Denver Nuggets would be on my off-limits list because, man … this team is capable of losing to anyone on any given night, perhaps more than any other upper-echelon team in the league. How weird are the Nuggets? They have 16 victories against teams that are at or above .500. They also have 10 losses to teams that are sub-.500.

The Nuggets have lost five of their last nine to surrender second place in the Western Conference to the Clippers and last week — at home — beat the Raptors by 15 and lost to the Warriors by 16 before going on the road to win at Charlotte by two and lose at Cleveland by the same margin. If anyone figures this out, let me know.

Nikola Jokic was huge against Toronto with his 12th triple-double of the season — 23 points, 18 rebounds, 11 assists — and then went south for the remainder of the week. In four games, he averaged 15.3 points, 12.5 rebounds, 8.5 assists and 1.0 steals in 32.5 minutes per game and shot 51.1 percent overall, missing all six of his 3-point attempts.

But after hitting 8-of-11 in the win over the Raptors, Jokic shot just 16-for-36 (44.4 percent) the rest of the week.

Last week: Won at Cleveland 126-113, won at New York 112-104, won at Boston 99-94, won at Detroit 111-105

This week: Monday vs. Toronto, Wednesday at Oklahoma City, Friday vs. New Orleans, Saturday vs. Memphis

The Utah Jazz have won five in a row on the heels of a four-game losing streak (which was on the heels of a four-game winning streak, which came after the Jazz lost five in a row, which followed four straight wins … yeah, Utah hasn’t had a one-game anything streak since an overtime loss at New Orleans on Jan. 16 that was sandwiched between win streaks of 10 and four games).

Roller coaster doesn’t even begin to describe the last two months for the Jazz, but this most recent uptick has Utah back among the Western Conference’s top four, one game behind third-place Denver and 2½ in back of the Clippers, who are in second place.

Rudy Gobert had a big game at Cleveland Monday, going for 20 points, nine rebounds, five blocks and two steals while hitting 8-of-9 from the floor. For the week, Gobert averaged 14.3 points, 10.5 boards, 3.0 blocks and 1.3 steals in 34.0 minutes a game while shooting a mundane 87.5 percent (yes, he took 24 shots and made 21 of them … seems fairly efficient).