WE Wrap Up Report: Wizards/Kings, Checkmate

Wizards pull out a win against the Sacramento Kings

Wizards 136 Kings 133

 

"This was one of the craziest games I have ever played," said John Wall, crazy was just an under statement.  This game was like a roller coaster of emotions. It was sweet to see the Wizards come out with a win as they were lead by their Jheri Curl superstar, Nick Young.

It is scary to think that if Nick Young always had confidence every game he would be a legitimate All Star.  I mean that with out even laughing. The guy has a shot and is not scared to use it. Nick finished with 43 points, this is not a typo, he really finished with 43 points!  He was en fuego, he could not be stopped.  It's great to see him dribble less, and just catch and shoot.  He is benefiting from the John Wall effect.

It was suppose to be the John Wall vs the DeMarcus Cousins show but instead Nick took that spotlight away and shined it on himself.  DeMarcus did finish with 10 points but 4 of 19 shooting.  He was missing simple, easy layups but sometimes had to change his shot because of the long arms of one, JaVale McGee.

The Wizards as a team shot very well from the field as they shot 50% along with 85% for free throws and 53% from three point land.  It helped out that Nick Young shot 7 of 10 three pointers tonight (see Box Scores below).

This starting 5 of JaVale McGee, Andray Blatche, Rashard Lewis, Nick Young, and John Wall is actually exciting to watch.  They play defense and they have good on court chemistry so far.  If only they had this same lineup all year, we can only wonder. 

This game was too close and it should have ended in the 4th.  The Wiz Kids blew a 20 point lead in the 1st half, and a 10 point lead in the 2nd half.  Bad mistakes towards the end of the 4th quarter did not help the cause because there was some miscommunication between Rashard Lewis and John Wall where they turned it over.  Cartier Martin fouled Francisco Garcia (26 points) as he was attempting a three point shot, but it did not end there.  Nick Young had the ball as he was bringing it up court, lost the handle of it, got on the floor to maintain possession of it, but was called for being out of bounds.  All these mistakes mounted up and gave the Kings some air to breathe to make a comeback.  Which lead to overtime.

In overtime, the Wizards were lead by Kirk Hinrich and his Horace Grant goggles.  He hit some key shots when the Wizards needed it. His veteran leadership is valuable to this organization and it will be key to the growth of John Wall.

John Wall had a hell of a game as he was one assist short (9) of a double-double as he finished with 22 points.  Also finished with 6 rebounds and shot 10 for 10 for free throws.  He is so clutch when it comes to his free throw shooting.  He was shooting 79% from free throw land before this game.

Great to see Al Thornton get in the game early and often as he finished with 9 points even with a bad shoulder.  With Josh Howard still out with his injury, look for Al to get his minutes.

It was really sad to see that after the Wizards and the Kings tied up to head into overtime.  Many fans got up and left their seats as if the game was over and I was not aware of it.  I could not believe my eyes, and I will never defend to say that this town has the best fans.  After what I witnessed, that would be a damn lie.  You have to support the team no matter what.

 

Box Scores Courtesy of ESPN.com

 

Sacramento Kings
STARTERS	MIN	FGM-A	3PM-A	FTM-A	OREB	DREB	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO	PF	+/-	PTS
Francisco Garcia, SG	39	9-17	3-6	5-5	0	4	4	1	0	2	0	4	-8	26
Jason Thompson, C	12	4-5	0-0	0-1	2	1	3	0	0	0	1	4	-22	8
DeMarcus Cousins, PF	37	4-19	0-1	2-6	2	6	8	3	2	1	3	4	-11	10
Luther Head, SG	12	2-7	0-1	0-0	1	0	1	3	0	0	0	0	-18	4
Beno Udrih, PG	42	10-13	1-3	5-5	1	3	4	6	2	1	3	3	+1	26
BENCH	MIN	FGM-A	3PM-A	FTM-A	OREB	DREB	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO	PF	+/-	PTS
Samuel Dalembert, C	15	3-4	0-0	1-1	1	0	1	1	0	1	0	2	-2	7
Omri Casspi, SF	35	5-15	3-6	2-2	0	8	8	3	2	0	2	2	+17	15
Jermaine Taylor, G	6	3-4	0-1	0-0	1	0	1	0	1	0	1	2	+9	6
Carl Landry, PF	39	9-13	0-0	5-5	3	2	5	2	3	1	1	0	+12	23
Eugene Jeter, PG	21	4-9	0-1	0-0	1	3	4	11	1	0	0	2	+13	8
Donte Greene, SF	5	0-2	0-1	0-0	0	1	1	1	0	0	1	0	-6	0
Darnell Jackson, PF	DNP COACH'S DECISION
TOTALS		FGM-A	3PM-A	FTM-A	OREB	DREB	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO	PF		PTS
		53-108	7-20	20-25	12	28	40	31	11	6	12	23		133
		49.1%	35.0%	80.0%

Washington Wizards
STARTERS	MIN	FGM-A	3PM-A	FTM-A	OREB	DREB	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO	PF	+/-	PTS
Rashard Lewis, PF	45	7-11	1-4	1-2	2	8	10	6	2	0	3	4	+20	16
Andray Blatche, PF	29	5-10	0-0	6-7	3	10	13	4	4	1	3	5	+21	16
JaVale McGee, C	43	3-10	0-0	4-6	4	7	11	0	0	1	1	3	+19	10
Nick Young, SG	45	14-22	7-10	8-9	2	2	4	3	0	0	3	2	+2	43
John Wall, PG	43	6-19	0-0	10-10	1	5	6	9	2	0	6	0	+16	22
BENCH	MIN	FGM-A	3PM-A	FTM-A	OREB	DREB	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO	PF	+/-	PTS
Kirk Hinrich, G	25	5-9	1-3	3-3	0	4	4	4	1	0	2	2	-17	14
Hilton Armstrong, C	4	0-0	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	1	-4	0
Cartier Martin, GF	3	0-0	0-0	0-0	0	2	2	0	0	0	0	1	0	0
Al Thornton, SF	12	4-5	0-0	1-2	1	0	1	1	0	0	1	3	-27	9
Yi Jianlian, PF	9	1-5	0-0	0-0	0	3	3	0	1	1	0	0	-9	2
Trevor Booker, C	2	1-2	0-0	0-0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	-2	2
Kevin Seraphin, F	5	1-2	0-0	0-0	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	1	-4	2
TOTALS		FGM-A	3PM-A	FTM-A	OREB	DREB	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TO	PF		PTS
		47-95	9-17	33-39	14	41	55	28	10	3	19	22		136
		49.5%	52.9%	84.6%

 

Things I saw/heard

* Ivan Carter of Washington Post Live = True Ladies Man

* During timeouts (people who are at home can't see this) but they had the "Best Dress Wizards" between Booker, McGee, and his bestfriend Andray Blatche. (Blatche won by default because he had his Louis Vaitton socks matching his whole outfit)

 

Post Game Quotes, Courtesy of the Washington Wizards PR Department

(check out the quotes about Nick Young and from Nick himself)

WIZARDS HEAD COACH FLIP SAUNDERS

On the game:

“You know what happens so much when you are trying to squeeze out a win, guys get so anxious, and sometimes you just have to slow down. I have always said that in our league when you look at great players, they look like they are playing in slow motion.”

On Nick Young:

“From the beginning he had 14 in the first then he ended up with 17 at the half. You know when you got it going some guys are looking for him. He didn’t take too many bad shots, and that was a big key for him.  You almost didn’t want to take him out because he was so hot.  I have always had that philosophy that you never want to take a guy out that might have a chance to break Wilt Chamberlain’s record.”

On Kirk Hinrich:

“Kirk was huge. I thought that Kirk didn’t play as well early because John and Nick played so well we wanted them in a lot. For him to be able to come in late and do the job that he did and make the plays he did, and hit big free-throws, and defensively he really did a good job.”

WIZARDS GUARD NICK YOUNG

On scoring 18 points in the third quarter:

“I just had a lot of confidence after I hit three shots in a row.  I just felt like I couldn’t miss.  I was open and my teammates were finding me and it just felt good.”

On his performance tonight:

“I talked to my dad before the game and he told me the stats he wanted me to get for him; 40 points, ten rebounds, and five assists.  I was like, dad, that’s impossible right now.  But it kind of worked out, except for the ten rebounds but I made up for it with 43.”

WIZARDS GUARD JOHN WALL

On the game:

“This was probably one of, next to the 76ers game and this is probably better than the 76ers game, one of the craziest games that I’ve ever played in.  We came out hot and in the second quarter they did a great job of stopping it and they did a great job of getting in transition and making threes and getting their momentum going.  We had to come out with a strong third quarter and usually we fall back in the third quarter.  That’s when teams usually come back against us and increase their lead.  Tonight we knew in the beginning of the third quarter we had to come out strong and we did that and Nick did a good job of making shots.  He did a great job of finding them.  We went up by 15 and in the fourth quarter they came back.  We were making free throws down the stretch but we did a careless job of keeping the ball.”

On Nick Young:

“It was a great performance.  The third quarter really boosted us.  He had three or four threes back to back and that got us into it and got us a momentum.  From right there we felt like we had the game in our hands.”

WIZARDS FORWARD ANDRAY BLATCHE

On the Sacramento comeback:

“The game was made of runs.  We made our run and they made theirs.  The most important thing is that we came out in the third quarter strong and that’s what saved us.”

On Nick Young’s performance:

“That was great.  When a person is hitting like that you have to continue to feed him the ball.  I tried to get it to him every time I had the chance.”

On learning lessons from tonight:

“Whether you win or lose either way you have to come into practice tomorrow and go over it again because you still made mistakes and we still have to come in and correct it.”

KINGS HEAD COACH PAUL WESTPHAL

On the game:

“There were wild swings both ways. It was a heartbreaker for us but I am still proud of our guys. It was a very unusual game, like an old fashioned shoot out. It came right down to the last possession. We don’t think we are a bad team so we are not going to give up. We’ve had a lot of games that have gone down to the wire in the fourth quarter and we are getting better at it. We are doing better with turnovers and execution, as well as making shots. We did a great job with rebounding tonight, but the fact is they got to the line a lot more than us.”

On Nick Young:

“He (Nick Young) was unbelievable. When he gets it going there is no stopping him. There were periods of time there that the basket seemed like it was three times the normal size for him. I told him he needed to start working on his assists, but he didn’t listen to me. We inexplicably left him alone a few times especially in the third quarter. We already knew he was on fire, and that is the last guy you want to leave open when that happens.”

KINGS FORWARD FRANCISCO GARCIA

On the game:

“It was a good game.  We came back, but they executed better than us, so we got to look at the film and see what we did wrong.”

On Nick Young:

“He is really talented.  He could put the ball in the hoop…and you know when he got hot, he was hard to stop.  He’s pretty good, a pretty good one-on-one player and he was making shots tonight.”

KINGS GUARD BENO UDRIH

On the end of the game:

"It was a little crazy at the end.  We were double-teaming, trying to go for steals and we got a couple of those. They missed two or three free throws, which got us back in the game. We basically stayed in the game with hustling and playing hard."

On the team’s defense:

"First quarter and third quarter we definitely needed to play better defense. The third quarter we were basically playing the same defense as we played in the second quarter and when we got back they were shooting a little better from three-point range."

On Nick Young’s performance:

"He was knocking down shots. They were probably talking at halftime about it (our zone) and how to play against it and they made a lot of open shots. They had a very hot guy taking all the shots and then we started to focus on him a little more and then some other players got shots. They were wide open. They deserved it.  They played hard too."

 

Pictures are Courtesy of Pam Chvotkin of WizardsExtreme.com