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2012 NBA power rankings: Heat, Magic at opposite ends

While the Miami Heat enjoy a good start to the season and a good ranking, the Orlando Magic are struggling near the bottom.

Scott Halleran

Just a couple of weeks into the season and the NBA teams in Florida are on opposite ends of power rankings from experts around the web. The Miami Heat have started the season well at 6-2 and rank first in the NBA in scoring offense. But a bad beating at the hands of the Memphis Grizzles earlier this week left SB Nation's Seth Rosenthal with a bad impression as he ranked them sixth-best in the NBA.

The Grizzlies were an extreme and unstoppable force in that game on Sunday, but even still, we got a look at how grim things can be for the Heat right now if that murderous offense doesn't feel like murdering on a given night against even halfway-decent opposition.

Over at ESPN, Marc Stein thought a little better of the Heat, ranking them third in the league. He says he's not nearly as concerned with the Heat given LeBron James is consistently finishing games close to a triple-double. The Heat continue their West Coast road trip with a tough game against the Los Angeles Clippers tomorrow night.

As far as the 2-4 Orlando Magic go, Seth Rosenthal puts them 27th best in the NBA, noting the team was already rebuilding when they lost a number of key players. Stein ranks the Magic 26th and says the Magic came crashing back to earth once they left home.

The only thing faster to date than Mike Brown's firing in L.A. was the swift plummet to Earth for Dwight Howard's old team once the Magic hit the road.

The Magic will try to right the ship against the undefeated New York Knicks tonight in Orlando.

Photographs by cstreet.us, thelastminute, turtlemom nancy , fesek, kthypryn, justinwright, sue_elias, pointnshoot, and scrapstothefuture used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.