In early mid-April (the 12th to be exact), when asked as part of an ESPN.com 5-on-5 roundtable which NBA star would have his legacy enhanced the most in the 2011 Playoffs, I wrote:

“The health of Andrew Bynum won’t affect Dirk Nowitzki’s hunger, but Nowitzki’s stomach did just growl. One could argue that Dirk’s legacy has the deepest hole from which to climb. Since blowing a 2-0 series lead on Miami in the 2006 Finals, the Mavericks have been bounced in the first round of the playoffs in three of the past four seasons. A championship isn’t wholly necessary to repair Dirk’s playoff legacy, but if Dallas fails to make the Finals, he may have to live with the label of a regular-season MVP who can’t come through in the postseason.”

Now, I’m not here to exactly toot my own horn as a prognosticator of all things basketball — seeing as I predicted last year’s Wizards to achieve 34 wins (only off by 11 wins), and the bastardly 2009-10 Wizards to achieve 55 wins (yes, I was off by a whole 29 wins here… like I said, “bastardly”) — however, in the same ESPN poll, in reponse to a query on the most surprising thing that would happen in the Western Conference playoffs, I wrote: Read more »

["What he did? Told them he cut his eye ... in sparring." -Wu-Tang Clan, Bells of War]

I kept telling myself, even Tweeting, when Miami was looking like unstoppable beasts for all but about seven minutes of NBA Finals game two, “Is Dallas the type of team you don’t want to let hang around?”

Of course they are. The Mavs are a unit well-versed in veteran composure, lest they would have had a seven game series with the Oklahoma City Thunder. But Miami isn’t Oklahoma, in so many senses.

Late in the game, after countless amazing dunks with little defensive resistance, Miami finally pulled away and took an 88-73 lead on a Dwayne Wade three. After nailing the shot near Dallas’ bench, Wade held his follow through and slowly walked toward his own bench, as Mavs coach Rick Carlisle had called a timeout. LeBron came over to give Wade celebratory chest jabs.

Read more »

[Ex-Wizard Brendan Haywood is heading to the NBA Finals, and now he's finagled two hats to prove it.]

The last ex-Washington Wizard* to appear in the NBA Finals used to be Larry Hughes. Not anymore. Hughes, a Wizard from 2002 to 2005, played for the Cleveland Cavaliers in game one of the 2007 Finals against the San Antonio Spurs. He scored two points on 1-5 shooting with two fouls and three rebounds in 23 minutes; the Cavs lost 85-76. In game two, Hughes missed all five of his field-goal attempts, didn’t score a point, and tallied two turnovers, two assists and two rebounds in 20 minutes; the Cavs lost 103-92. Dealing with foot issues pertaining to his plantar fascia, Hughes didn’t play in games three and four as the Spurs swept LeBron James in his only Finals appearance to date.

Now that the Dallas Mavericks have beaten the Oklahoma City Thunder for the right to represent the West in the 2011 Finals, three more ex-Wizards will be playing for the Larry O’Brien Trophy. Antawn Jamison, who always kept a picture of the NBA’s championship trophy in his Wizards locker (now it’s John Wall’s locker), is probably really happy for his ex-teammates, but most certainly in a ‘I wish it were me’ kind of way. And if you want even more of a storyline as Brendan Haywood, DeShawn Stevenson and Caron Butler (okay fine, I’ll include Brian Cardinal, another former Wizard (2002-03)… so, four ex-Wizards), head to championship holy ground with Dallas, consider all the history those three most recent Wizards have with one potential opponent, the very same LeBron James, this time of the Miami Heat.

All but calling him a cry-baby, Haywood once led to LeBron being labelled “They trying to hurt me” James. With Stevenson, you can pretty much begin and end with him calling James overrated, and then Jay-Z coming to James’ rescue with a blown whistle on a diss track. Oh, and there’s also that back-and-forth gossip girl thing between the Stevenson and James, thanks to Drew Gooden’s loose lips. So yea, DeShawn and LeBron pretty much hate each other. Butler mostly aimed to remain neutral through the familiarity the Wizards used to have with James’ Cavaliers via first round playoff matchups in three straight seasons from 2006 to 2008.

Read more »

**Cue the ESPN  30 for 30 voice**

What if I told you that two seven-footers battled this summer for a chance to play center for Team USA at the FIBA World Basketball Championships in Turkey? That the older one coming off surgery made the team, while the younger, healthier one was cut? Those same two players met earlier this year, and the one who got cut from Team USA was again dominated by the older, wiser center. Would it be a surprise if I told you that these same two centers squared off Saturday night, and again the younger center came up short, partially because the older one beat him at his own game in running up and down the court, catching alley-oops and making highlight dunks?

This is the story of Tyson Chandler’s dominance  over JaVale McGee.

Read more »

It late in the third quarter against the Dallas Mavericks and Washington made a quick 7-0 run sparked by a John Wall layup, a Kevin Seraphin offensive rebound put-back and a Mo Evans three from the corner. The Wizards cut Dallas’ once comfortable lead to just four points at 76-72 and then got Jason Terry to miss a three with 30 seconds left in the period. But on Washington’s next possession, Wall turned the ball over and the Mavericks went breaking in the other direction with a seemingly easy opportunity. The old Wizards might have just let Shawn Marion get the bucket, spawned by their often seen habit of displaying a willingness to lay down for a superior opponent. Not newcomer Evans though.

Mo Evans has made a name for himself as a tough role player for playoff teams in Sacramento, Detroit, Los Angeles (for the Lakers, obviously), Orlando and Atlanta over the previous two seasons. He played for Wizards coach Flip Saunders on the 2005-06 Pistons team and as an undrafted rookie with the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2004-05.

Read more »

[Brendan Haywood has a lot of reasons to smile now, even if he is just getting 17 minutes off the bench, and sometimes struggling, for the Dallas Mavericks. Winning and a playoff future helps a lot.]

[Andray Blatche, on the other hand, is going through a lot of personal struggles, mostly on the court which has bleed into off-the-court moments, which are magnified by losing. Blatche has missed the last two games because of what's being noted as a hip injury and was unable to face Haywood on the court on Saturday night.]

Brendan Haywood walked into the Wizards locker room to see some familiar faces. Most of them weren’t Wizards players. He greeted a couple team personnel of various sorts and then looked across the room to where his locker used to be.

Read more »

Andray Blatche does some good things, he does some terrible things … on the basketball court and off. He also has mounting armies of detractors and slightly less factions of defenders, who usually elect to stand on the tippy-toe of one leg in their staunch defense.

I suppose that as long as Andray Blatche is around doing Andray Blatche things, people will around to criticize and point those things out, myself included. Although, admittedly, I should be more fair in pointing out the positive things he does, i.e., I probably should not have taken a shot at him in a post about Darrell Walker’s rebounding ability. Oh well. We want Blatche to succeed, we really do, but he seems to try hard at not making that want possible through not always trying hard … you know what I mean?

His positives get over-shadowed by his negatives, by far. But that’s the bed he makes … he’s not the next Gilbert Arenas, but he is. Only Blatche can shut his critics up, not the critics themselves nor his defenders. These are the facts, just like it’s a fact that many other NBA players do not respect Blatche. Taken from something TAI’s Rashad Mobley wrote after the Wizards lost to the Chicago Bulls in Washington on Dec. 22:

“But the strongest indictment of the Blatche’s play on this night did not come from any writer, blogger or coach, but from the other locker room. As Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau finished his postgame comments and the media filtered into the visiting quarters, there was a conversation between two Bulls players about the play of Blatche.  One player observed that he played with “no feeling” during the game, and the other player said, matter-of-fact, that Blatche has always played that way throughout his career.

One player involved in that conversation left the locker room before I could follow up with him, the other declined to elaborate any further on the record.  Still, their feelings about Blatche’s lack of effort in defeat were crystal clear.”

Read more »

When the name Denny Green is mentioned, the first image that comes to mind is the one you see above, and with good reason.  He’s flustered, he’s angry, he’s mumbling, and after 40 seconds or so, he stomps away from the podium.  But five years before that outburst, Green had every reason to be just as angry when he was fired by the Minnesota Vikings, despite leading them to the brink of the Super Bowl just three years earlier.  However, at his I-just-got-fired press conference, Green displayed nothing but class (with a splash of third person):

“If you’re looking for Denny Green, look on the high road, because that is where I’ll be.”

The same concept applies when examining the Washington Wizards 24th straight road loss to the Dallas Mavericks last night. It is easy, and dare I say lazy, to focus on the list of errors that led to their 102-92 defeat.  Everyone saw their 61.3-percent free throw percentage (Dallas shot 67.6-percent), the poor shooting nights for Andray Blatche and Nick Young (a combined 10-37), and the lack of a consistent go-to guy in the fourth quarter.  Those shortcomings, and others very similar to them, have been present throughout this road losing streak.

That being said,  there were plenty of positives to take away from last night’s loss, and if they are bottled up and carried into tonight’s game in New Orleans against the Hornets, perhaps the Wizards can get a win before they get loss number 25.  So join me on the high road as we examine a few positives a bit closer. Read more »

Overall, the Wizards looked impressive en route to an “it’s just the preseason” 97-94 win over the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday night (although they almost gave the game away). Here’s who looked good, bad and okay in yays, nays and mehs.

What are these gents celebrating?
Well, the Microwave just cooked the game.

>>YAY.

Read more »

[Rodrigue Beaubois stands annoyed after another foul was called on him.]

Before the game I ran my mouth off to just about anyone who would listen at UNLV’s Cox Pavilion that I was intrigued by the Roddy-Wall match-up, clearly, a Samhan-McGee ‘opposites attract’ battle, and finally, perhaps Hamady N’diaye versus Moussa Seck in a Senegalese throw down.

Well, Beaubois couldn’t do anything but foul Wall and was switched off him, the newly acquired Ian Mahinmi started for Dallas and mostly guarded JaVale, and Seck didn’t even see the court. Damn the summer league (just kidding, I love you).

Two things are below: 1) quick post-game chats with John Wall, Rodrigue Beaubois and Dominique Jones in video form; and 2) the second piece by Arish Narayen, a contributor to Truth About It. Arish previously broke down the Wizards’ small forward situation. Here he takes a look at summer league game three against the Mavericks. Read more »