When LeBron James complains about fouls, it’s not about his size, as he would gladly have you believe. Neither is it about there being a presumed double-standard from imposing basketball specimens like himself and Dwight Howard. Sure, there are reasons to take notice, but let’s be honest, it’s about politicking through the gladly willing media.

Said Heat coach Erik Spoelstra after Wednesday night’s game versus the Wizards:

“He absorbs a lot more contact than people realize. He’s big and tough enough that he shrugs it off. But you go in there and see him in the locker room, and he’s got ice on pretty much every part of his body.”

So do 5’11″ guards who live in the lane. So do a lot of NBA players. It’s a tough game. And when someone like LeBron, who has the sixth highest usage rate in the NBA at 31.4-percent, gladly uses his abnormal physique to gain an advantage, it certainly is going to feel like he’s being handled more physically, at least to him. But it’s all relative.

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Jordan Crawford does a little bit of everything…

Before tip off, I was curious how the Wizards would respond in a game that had all the trappings of an emotional let down. Gone were the Heat and the insanity they always bring to an atmosphere. Gone was the underdog mentality, facing a Cleveland Cavaliers team that had won three fewer games than the Wiz this year. And of course, gone was John Wall, suspended after trying to put his fist through Zydrunus Ilgauskas’s rib cage against Miami Wednesday night.

How would the Wizards respond in a game that, even without John Wall, one might actually expect them to win?

Said Flip Saunders, “in the pregame talk, after we got done, I told one of the assistant coaches ‘man I don’t feel that energy in that room tonight.’”

But Flip’s guys came through for game time.

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Mustafa Shakur, Othyus Jeffers, Hamady N’diaye, Kevin Seraphin and Cartier Martin.

Those were all of the players available for the Wizards off the bench last night in Utah. Shakur didn’t play (coach’s decision being the given reason), and N’diaye tallied just three minutes in the box score, nothing else. Jeffers, Seraphin and Martin combined for 18 points on 6-14 from the field and 17 rebounds, five offensive thanks to the bruising workmanship of Jeffers. The numbers of the bench squad with the most unique set of names ever weren’t astounding, but the Wizards made it work in their somewhat shocking 100-95 overtime win over the Utah Jazz on Monday night.

Sure, Utah was missing Devin Harris and Andrei Kirilenko from their starting lineup, instead putting out a unit of Earl Watson, C.J. Miles, Raja Bell, Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson. But a Wizards starting five of John Wall, Jordan Crawford, Mo Evans, Yi Jianlian and JaVale McGee didn’t have a chance of feeling sorry for the Jazz, or themselves.

Jazz fans, however, may be feeling sorry for themselves … enough to boo their team at intermittent times throughout the game as Washington fought to gain control early, and then tried their best to relinquish it late, despite Utah’s best effort to not take advantage. It was odd to hear the Wizards television team of Steve Buckhantz and Phil Chenier recount just how far the Utah franchise has fallen in the year 2011. The Jazz were 27-13 when they made an east coast trip in mid-January, beginning with a game in Washington on the 17th.

Jerry Sloan’s team proceeded to lose to the Wizards on Martin Luther King Day, and then they lost five more in a row. Barely a month later, Sloan resigned after a 23-year run with the team and star point guard Deron Williams was traded to New Jersey. Now the Jazz are left in a vastly uncertain rebuilding mode with Tyrone Corbin as their coach, a six game losing streak (including last night’s take down by the Wizards), and a 36-39 record that looks to keep them out of the playoffs for just the fifth time in the last 28 years (also the fifth time in the last eight years, to be fair).

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[Editor's Note: TAI's Adam McGinnis takes us back to his photos from 'Under the Hoop' when the Milwaukee Bucks were in D.C. on March 8.]

The Opening Tip.

Bucks Warm Up.

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Pictures of flying NBA players and a couple stories about them…

{Kevin Garnett sends Cartier Martin flying}

{John Wall hovers to save a ball}

{Joakim Noah doing Joakim Noah things}

{John Wall flies for a loose ball}

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…he was alone in an abandoned locker room, folded in an office chair with enough lumbar support to carry the weight of his woes.

John Wall has been chosen to be D.C.’s defender — a challenge made that much more difficult since it too often appears that he’s been fated to do so alone. Wall’s teammates have been blessed with the power of flight, but also cursed with invisibility. After being defeated by Warriors from the Golden State this past Wednesday, John Wall put out a quiet plea for help.

On Saturday night, the Wizards were down 68-72 after three tightly contested quarters; Minnesota and Washington were never separated by more than eight points. The coaching staff once again signaled for a gritty, high-energy combination to save the day … while tightening the reins on liabilities. A league of unsung heroes again rose to the occasion to establish order in the most powerful city in the world. Joining John Wall were Cartier Martin, The Enlightened One; Mo Evans, The Old Hand; Trevor Booker, The Beast; and Andray Blatche, The Scapegoat.

“I was extremely happy with the energy our guys played with overall,” said head coach Flip Saunders in his postgame press conference. Saunders also went on to praise the much-maligned Blatche for his sustained effort and fighting spirit and rightfully so. Blatche, of course, has been routinely criticized by fans, the conglomerated media, and even opposing players for ho-hum performances. But last night, he earned his keep and deserved the credit. Blatche and the Wizards scored 35 points to close the game, after scoring just 68 points through the first three quarters. The focus and determination over the last 12 minutes lifted the team to victory, en route to breaking a miserable 7-game losing streak.

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Randy Wittman seems to be a guy who likes to color within the lines. And sure there is an occasional twitch, a little jerk that sends his coaching marker beyond expectations – take for example his colorful exchange with JaVale McGee, which left both men red in the face.

But slip-ups like that, at the very least, let you know that the guy is human.

“Trust me, I don’t want to be standing here talking with you guys,” he said with a smirk before Wednesday night’s game versus the Golden State Warriors, filling in for Flip Saunders, who was with his ailing mother who recently passed away. Even with his disarming smile, you could tell that there was a fire in Wittman’s words, a communication of purpose. Such passion is expected from a man who has lived and breathed basketball since the ’70s, I imagine.

“The effort has to be better, obviously,” said Wittman during his pregame presser. “It can’t fluctuate. […] To win in this league and be a winner in this league you can’t have fluctuations in your effort, energy, and desire playing. Chicago kind of took that out of us … they kind of took the will to win away from us and that can’t happen.”

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For being the root of the furor surrounding the confiscated, yet perhaps less-than-stellar dunk on LeBron James in July 2009, Jordan Crawford is a rather ambiguous player. His hunched-down physique, raspy gargle of a voice and 6’4″, 195 pound stature almost denotes an ‘old man’ impression on his non-demonstrative movement. But when he goes to score, fueled by natural instinct, he is just as spry as you’d expect of a 22-year old NBA rookie, and then some.

But what exactly does he do? Are the Wizards simply working with wild scoring talent that needs to be tamed? That seems to be the more present denominator of Crawford’s game with, perhaps, the assumption that his development as a complete player — certainly including the ability to play defense and perhaps including the ability to fill the role of spot creator — will simply come along for the ride of his seemingly unpredictable nature.

Crawford has shown the promise of relentless defensive intensity, and he’s also shown the ‘oh brother’ of overly aggressive, erratic offense. What he seems to be at this point is naturally unnatural, the current stats on his professional career, in their tiny, unable to be truly analyzed sample size, contributing to his ambiguous nature. He is yet another Wiz Kid to be tossed in the already crowded pool, not to see if swims, but how he swims. Hopefully Crawford and his other young teammates don’t end up climbing and clawing at each other in order to stay afloat. But the mundanely optimistic part about watching a bad team in the midst of rebuilding is that the opportunities will be aplenty.

Maurice “Mo” Evans, who came to the Wizards with Crawford in the Kirk Hinrich trade, has proven to be a veteran’s vet. He’s well-spoken and provides thought-out answers, the good standing of his opinion aided by the fact that he’s one of six vice presidents of the National Basketball Players Association. Evans has been around Crawford for the duration of his 212-minute NBA career (160 over 16 games in Atlanta and 52 minutes over four games in Washington). More importantly, Evans has seen a display of Crawford’s talents and demeanor since training camp and in practices — clearly Evans ranks highly amongst authorities in observational opinion of Crawford’s game. After last Saturday’s game versus the Dallas Mavericks, I asked Evans two key questions about Crawford.

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Wizards Talk.

Bulls Walk.

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.

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