A lot of the slow starts by some of the power house squads may have something to do with the short practice time before the start of the season. I watched the Mavs game on Xmas and they looked they were severly out of practice. They were not on the same page and looked confused. I remember the Spurs came out of the gate a while back real slow like that. They eventually all got on the same page, and looked like one of the better 3-4 teams in the league towards the end of the season. I still think that of the Mavs, Celts and Lakers - 2 of those 3 will still make noise.
As a cheap shot to AUT1, I would like to remind the readers of this thread that the O's started out with the American League's best record the first week of the baseball season this year.