NBA Power Rankings: Warriors' chase hits the home stretch By Marc Stein | ESPN.com

Monday, April 4

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The question comes in every time Golden State has the temerity to lose a basketball game:

Is this the week you're finally going to bump the Warriors down to No. 2, Stein?

Yet our answer hasn't changed.

Maybe some of you out there believe that the Warriors have that small of a lead on the rest of the field in ESPN.com's weekly NBA Power Rankings.

The Committee of One does not.

So even after its first regulation home loss in a regular-season game in a span of 506 days, as inflicted Friday night by the Boston Celtics, Golden State continues to hold off San Antonio for the top spot in these rankings, because the Warriors still went 3-1 last week to become just the fourth team in league history to win 69 games in a season.

The previous three, for the record, all went on to win the championship: 1971-72's Los Angeles Lakers (69-13) and back-to-back Chicago Bulls teams in 1995-96 (72-10) and 1996-97 (69-13).

Something else to keep track of as the Warriors' chase for a record 73 wins hits a climax in the next week-plus: Golden State and San Antonio have both slipped below the mythical plus-12 stratosphere in terms of nightly point margin. The Warriors, though, have managed to narrow the gap on the Spurs -- it's now an edge of just plus-11.6 to plus-11.0 for our No. 2 team -- thanks to their 25-point rout of Portland on Sunday in the first game since that 54-game home winning streak perished.

You can share your views on our latest 1-to-30 order below in the comments section. Hearty thanks go, as always, to our pals from within the NBA wing of ESPN Stats & Information, as well as the Elias Sports Bureau, for the ever-clutch data assistance they provide week after week after week to help the Committee make all of its calculations.

And next Monday, of course, will be the final edition of the rankings for the 2015-16 season, with only San Antonio -- thanks to its two shots at the reigning champs in a span of four days -- able to prevent the Warriors from making ESPN.com history and topping this ladder wire-to-wire.