wizards 98 blazers 95
1/21/2013 - Rose Garden, Portland, OR
ESPN Boxscore
NBA.com Game Highlights


(Photo by Bruce Ely/ The Oregonian)

 

Holy Hell that was an amazing finish, and you know it’s an amazing finish when Steve Buckhantz screams his trademark “Dagger!” with all intensity. For those who missed it, Jordan Crawford hit an amazing buzzer beater to give the Wizards their fifth win in seven games.

The MVP of this game was Nene, hands down.  He was doing everything from playing center to playing point guard even.  I am convinced that Nene is one of the best passing big man in the game today.  He gave some beautiful back door passes to Webster.  He picked up the slack since Wall had a horrible game.  More on that later but Nene started the game 7-7 at one point and ended with 17 points in the first quarter alone.

When healthy, Nene is a top 5 center in my book. 

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John Wall: Sheesh, talk about a bad game.  Wall wasn’t himself against the Trailblazers.  He had as many turnovers as points in the first half.  It seemed like John’s talents were taken from the little aliens in Space Jam.  Wall finished with a strong defensive performance but was lacking the offensive end.  One thing that always annoys me about John is his jump shots.  His jumper is very inconsistent because he doesn’t jump high enough for his shots. He just needs a little elevation.  He needs that jump shot like JaVale McGee needs an IQ.

LaMarcus Aldrige: He was no way entertaining like the last spotlight, JaVale McGee, but he was trying to keep his team in the game. He finished with 17 points on 6-15 shooting along with 12 rebounds.  Aldridge is a perennial all star in this league but had some issues with the likes of Nene and Emeka Okafor.   Speaking of Okafor, he stuffed Aldridge on a dunk attempt. It was exactly that, an attempt.  Okafor blocked it and Aldridge was on the ground stunned.
 

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The Good

Besides the game winning shot by Jordan Crawford aka Steez, Martell Webster wanted to stick it to the team that drafted him.  Nene was damn near perfect at one point.  Nene once brought the ball up and pretended to be John Wall has he brought the ball up and gave Webster an amazing back door pass.  It was truly amazing to watch. 

Wizards shot 46%, ended up with 23 assists compared to the Blazers 25, and finished with 31 bench points to Portland’s 15.

 

The Bad

Wall’s play was really bad in the first half but improved in the second.  John finished with 6 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assist and 4 turnovers.  He did all this in 26 minutes of play.  He could not get into a groove.  John got more confidence as the game continued.  He made one of the most crucial plays, which was on the defensive end.  He stripped the ball away from Damien Lilliard for the go ahead dunk.  The Wizards can’t afford to have their best player not show up offensively.  He was going either too fast or too slow.  There was no middle ground with his speed/rhythm.

 

The Ugly

It was all about turnovers, turnovers, and more turnovers.  The Wizards just kept turning the ball over at one point.  The flow of the game was not smooth until the second half.

Bradley Beal’s performance overall was just horrendous.  He went 1-7 from the field to along with five rebounds in just 25 minutes of play.   He was actually sitting on the bench down the stretch. Overall, it was just one of those bad games where he couldn’t find his rhythm.  General rule of thumb is, you ride the hot hand and he was not one of them. Sh*t happens, right? There is always the next game.

But, let this soak in for a minute……the scary thing about this game was the poor offensive performance by both Beal and Wall still wasn’t enough for a Wizards loss. Hmmm…