{Steve Nash all alone. - K. Weidie}

The last game was played in Milwaukee, and this one was played in the friendly confines of the Verizon Center.  The Bucks were missing three starters, and the Suns had a healthy roster at their disposal.  The Wizards are a putrid 0-20 on the road, and they went into last night’s contest with 12-8 home record–including four straight wins at home.  You get the point here, there were plenty of differences between last night’s game against Phoenix and Wednesday night’s game against Milwaukee.  Still, it played out exactly the same.

In both games, the Wizards played flawless first quarter basketball, only to see their hard work come unraveled in each quarter after that, leading to a double digit loss.

The Wizards shot 53-percent in the first quarter, and they were mainly led by Nick Young (11 points) and Andray Blatche (10 points).  John Wall did not do much damage scoring-wise (two points), but he managed to dish out a whopping nine assists, before he was subbed out for Kirk Hinrich with 3:49 left in the period.

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Two initial thoughts upon hearing “strong” Gilbert Arenas trade rumors (via: Yahoo!, Orlando Pinstriped Post, Washington Post):

1) So what? If he’s traded, he’s traded. If he’s not, he’s not. Arenas has had a colorful past in D.C. that will always be remembered, mostly good … but it wouldn’t be colorful unless there’s some bad, and that will be remembered too.

Gilbert has come back relatively quietly this season (aside from emo acts, the fake knee injury, or shoe poop stories). Whether truly humbled, who knows, but he’s at least playing the part. The struggle with whether he should stay or go should now be released, regardless of if the rumors become true or not. People will surely struggle with how to remember him, many will dramatically paint broad pictures with broad brushes … just remember him.

It reminds me of a fight I once had with my girlfriend. It got pretty heated, and in a dead serious moment she looked up at me and said, “I hate to get all Mike Miller on you, but it is what it is.” And then the fight was pretty much over. I cracked up because she had the perfect way to break the tension, and get my attention, rending the conflict silly in the big picture. Then we moved on.

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No one likes moral victories. They aren’t supposed to happen in professional sports, at least not acknowledged. Moral victories? Those are for the college underdogs, the 15 or 16-seeds in the Big Dance.

But if you’re the Washington Wizards, fighting hard against the Orlando Magic to the point where the game was decided by a Gilbert Arenas missed runner in the paint (after being stuffed like turkeys on Thanksgiving night in Atlanta), you’ll take it as one to grow on.

“Well, we competed,” Flip Saunders said, almost reluctantly, after his team fell 100-99 in the waning seconds. “Had opportunities, I thought we could have very easily hung our heads when we got in the situation and got down 12, but fought back, had some great individual play.” The coach relented his answer before even being asked a question at his post-game press conference.

Wizards fans can only hope the players see the type of effort displayed against Orlando as more positive bricks in their project of rebuilding. Saunders had an excellent game plan and his players worked hard to implement it. But the little things made the difference on Saturday night, according to the Wizards’ coach.

“It’s just the little things,” Saunders noted. “We wanted to wrap [Dwight] Howard up, not let him get layups. We gave him too many layups.”

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