Remember that goofy Bobby Knight “Game Face” display during some press conference long ago? Whether you do or you don’t, let’s take it to YouTube (it’s No. 2 in the countdown of top Knight soundbites):

But what about pre-game faces? Well, thanks to TAI’s Adam McGinnis, we have some of those faces from last Tuesday’s Wizards-Lakers game below. But first …

Truth About It is giving away more free Wizards tickets, this time two lower-level tickets to Saturday’s Wizards game versus the Miami Heat, courtesy of StubHub.

How do you win the tickets? Like last time, at around 3 PM EST this afternoon, Friday, December 17, I will be posting a Wizards-related trivia question on the TAI Twitter account: @Truth_About_It. The first person to email, NOT Tweet, the correct answer to truthaboutit@gmail.com will have two (2) tickets — Section 117, Row F — waiting for them at the Verizon Center Will Call for Saturday night’s 7 PM game.

The trivia question last time was: “Before playing last game @ US Airways Arena in 97, the Wash. Wizards signed a player who prev. played in 345 total gms as a Bullet. Name him”

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[Kobe Bryant looks to discover more about Sam Cassell - photo: Adam McGinnis]

How does one evaluate a performance like the Washington Wizards gave in a 103-89 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night? They didn’t play their worst, but weren’t even in sight of the perfect game they would have needed to beat the reigning champs. Washington did their best to fight, but continued to make the same exact mistakes that fans should sadly be becoming immune to now. Each key defensive gaffe became mundane, blending in with the others.

Already severely out-manned with no Andray Blatche, John Wall and Josh Howard, Yi Jianlian went down about five minutes into the game with just about the same injury to the same knee. That’s when the Washington Post’s Michael Lee invoked the ‘Curse O’ Les Boulez’ on Twitter. Great.

Lesser than a tale of two halves, it was a tale of two quarters, the first and the second. The Wizards “hung around” in the first quarter, moving the ball well (7 assists, 11 field-goals, 0 turnovers) and playing aggressive defense. Of course, that aggressiveness combined with the aura of a champion that seems to possess referees pinned the Wizards for 10 fouls — although some of those should certainly be credited to bad defensive positioning. After the game, Al Thornton also denoted a couple early call against him as “cheap.” Pretty much what you can expect when you have to guard Kobe Bryant and his ability to draw fouls. Watching the referees pay meticulous attention to Kobe’s presence with their whistles is akin to walking by a construction site behind of bevy of Hooters waitresses.

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{photo by Adam McGinnis}

News broke during the Los Angeles Lakers’ 103-89 victory over the Washington Wizards that Lakers guard Sasha Vujacic will likely be traded to the New Jersey Nets. Via CBS Sports:

The first step, agreed to in principle Tuesday, is a three-team trade in which the Nets get a first-round pick from the Rockets and another one from the Lakers. New Jersey sends Terrence Williams to the Rockets and Joe Smith to the Lakers, who send Sasha Vujacic to the Nets, the people familiar with the framework of the deal said.

Vujacic, nicknamed the “Machine”, had fallen out of the Lakers’ rotation this season with the new additions of Steve Blake, Matt Barnes and the improved play of Shannon Brown.

The trade cannot officially go through until Wednesday, so Lakers’ coach Phil Jackson was unable to comment in his post game presser, but he did slyly remark that they could us a big guy named John Doe in a hypothetical question about adding Joe Smith.

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[Gilbert Arenas takes a bow after his 60 point game vs. the LA Lakers on December 17, 2006.]

Twenty-two down with game 23 coming tonight in D.C. against jersey No. 24 and his LA Lakers. 60 games to go on the season for the Wizards? Seems like a lot … until it isn’t. What also seems like a lot is the fact that a Los Angeles purple and gold team will be gunning to avenge the moral victory Washington recently achieved on their court … while gaining an Andrew Bynum back against a Wizards team likely to be without Andray Blatche, perhaps without John Wall, and with Gilbert Arenas “generally sore” … whatever that means.

So do you want to see the Wizards take on the Lakers tonight for free anyway? Sure you do. Because guys like Trevor Booker and Kevin Seraphin, a duo who helped fuel Washington’s valiant attempts in LA, are expected to see their fair share of time on the court with the swollen knee of 7-Course-Meal-Dray expected to keep him inactive. The Nick Young-Kobe Bryant Show Part II could be fun to watch as well.

Hence, TAI is giving away more free tickets courtesy of StubHub … this time, three tickets to an upper level suite (I know, three tickets is an odd number, but three is also company.)

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If you tucked yourself into bed early last night, snug as a bug on a cold December evening, nice job of letting something as silly as sleep usurp your Wizards fandom, because you missed a helluva game.

With people already checking mock drafts and college prospects for roster potentials, it’s worth notching Washington’s 115-108 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers as moral victory No. 3 on the season, after Orlando at home and Miami on the road, and last night’s game certainly holds to the top spot as the Wizards’ most entertaining game of the season, win or loss.

There were so many highlight plays by both teams that several will surely fall between the cracks (and did in the highlight video above). From a Wizards’ perspective, he’s a quick overview:

Trevor Booker is a man, and not just in physique. The four-year college player from Clemson showed veteran confidence against the Lakers on his way to 14 points, four rebounds and two steals in 21 minutes off the bench. But should he start in front of Andray Blatche? (BTW, Blatche sat out the Lakers game with a left hip bruise last night. Speaking of, why are so many Wizards sitting out with bruises lately — or “contusions” as they are called? First it was Nick Young sitting out against the Blazers and now Dray — and I’m not here to say those contusions don’t hurt and make it hard to move, but sitting out with a bruise would seemingly indicate inherent softness … just saying.) Anyway, Mike Prada on Bullets Forever writes:

“I would be careful to overreact to this game and call for sweeping changes to the starting lineup.  While Booker played great, this was also a fast-paced game with a lot of instinct rather than thinking, and he excels in that kind of setting.  That said, maybe it’s time to make some changes in the rotation.  Less Andray Blatche, much less Yi Jianlian and more Young at small forward.  I’m not talking something as drastic as a lineup change necessarily, but if Booker T and the Frenchman don’t earn more PT going forward, then you’re essentially saying playing the Lakers this close is meaningless.”

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[via Washington Wizards FaceBook]

Because I didn’t have a better title. Because I love late-starting West Coast games. Because I usually stay up late anyway. Because I’m excited to watch this match-up. Because Al Thornton sports jammies in SoCal. That’s Juice for ya.

LINKS.

For tonight’s Wizards-Lakers game, I did a Q&A with Andy Kamanetzky of the Land O’ Lakers blog on ESPN LA … you should go check it out.

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Back in D.C. from vacation, and carrying an unfulfilled pseudo promise to find somewhere in New Orleans to watch Sunday’s Wizards-Lakers game (I said screw it and went to a place where I knew the food would be good … the Acme Oyster Company. Sure, a little touristy, but the food was still awesome, and the GF and I sat at the oyster bar where we were repeatedly slipped extra freshly shucked oysters … so no complaints there), I’m ready to jump full-on into the remaining 14 games on the schedule, starting with tonight’s home match-up against the Charlotte Bobcats. Hopefully the Wizards will either get a win this evening or tomorrow in Indiana so as not to tie the longest losing steak in franchise history at 13 games, achieved once in ’94-95 under Jim Lynam and once in ’66-67 as the Baltimore Bullets under Gene Shue.

But to recap the last game against the Lakers, we have a guest post from someone who did watch it. Below are the observations of Carter Bryant, a freelance sports journalist from the Baton Rouge area who is currently interning for Sirius/XM Satellite Radio in Washington, D.C.

Actually, one quick note first. Yesterday the WaPost’s Michael Lee reported that Gilbert Arenas’ mother recently passed away. Man, tough year for that guy. I couldn’t imagine being abandoned by my mother, and if I would even talk to her later in life given the opportunity. Gilbert at one point sounded like he wanted to reconnect with her after one chance encounter, but opted to at least put it off until his playing days are over. Now it makes one think … don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today, especially when it comes to family and friends.

{flickr/jvnunag}

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It was one of those “it is what it is” games. The Wizards gave effort and got beat by a very good team, falling 115-103 to the champion Lakers. Flip Saunders told his players that if they would have played with the same effort against the Heat and the Clippers, they would probably be looking at four wins during the now complete season long six-game homestand instead of two.

The second quarter was where the match was lost. Los Angeles put up 30 points, the Wizards put up 15. Otherwise Washington outscored L.A. by three. In the second, and for pretty much the entire game, the Lakers resembled the time-tested analogy of a well-oiled machine. Even though they were 1-7 from three in the period, they shot 56% on 14 made field-goals, got three steals, two courtesy of Shannon Brown, and shot 9-11 in the paint.

Meanwhile the Wizards turned the ball over seven times leading to nine Lakers points and only got one assist. They also gave L.A. six second-chance points in the second. Instead of a well-oiled machine, the Wizards played like they ate butter drenched popcorn for a pregame meal. Unforced turnovers served as the calling card of the hapless.

Wizards 2nd Q Lineups

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So Mike James has been written about a couple times lately. And with everything else that’s going on, it’s nice to talk about non-legal, non-14-29 record, basketball-related items. But first, here’s a run-down of everything that’s going on (can’t help myself) …

Such as Javaris Crittenton finally appearing in court, pleading to a misdemeanor gun possession, and being sentenced to one-year probation and a $1,250 fine all in about half-a-day. Oh, and since Gilbert Arenas has owned “hundreds” of guns, we found out about him making fun of Crittenton’s gun because it was little. Good one.

What else? Well, Crittenton’s day in court only created more contradictions, brought to you by Dan Steinberg, and not clarity. My favorite one … the idea the Crittenton dealt with fearing for his life with an unloaded gun. Can we all agree that Javaris got rid of the bullets before turning in the gun? Ok, I’m making an assumption, but that seems like where the smart money is.

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flickr/kris247

“How dare us (the Lakers) be complacent and lackadaisical in regular season game,” said Derek Fisher from the podium during his NBA championship winning press conference.

What regular season game was D-Fish speaking of in reference to the turning point of the Lakers’ season? Why, an early December ’08 meeting against the Washington Wizards in the Verizon Center of course.

[Continue reading on NBC Washington.com]

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