It’s really tempting to say that this time, the Wizards won’t just settle for two games in a row. But they do have Dallas on Wednesday, and they do have a track record of stumbling the last three times this season that they had the chance to push the streak to three.
Here’s my game report, by the way.
But the mood is changing at Verizon Center, where even the media room has now been scrubbed clean of Gilbert Arenas pictures. The only thing left is the photo collage at the entrance to the team locker room. Surely, it won’t be long.
Oops, didn’t mean to do that. See, even here on the blog it’s still tempting to get caught up in all that has descended on this franchise over the last tumultuous month, and man, the dread was familiar when the Wizards gave up a 12-2 run at the end of the third quarter against Portland But something else happened. Washington was the team that prevailed, that stuck to its game plan, that made plays, both offensively and defensively.
Even when Martell Webster hit a wide-open 3-pointer to give Portland an 88-85 lead, Randy Foye responded at the other end to cut the deficit right back to one. When Webster finally missed, Foye was also there for the long rebound and downcourt pass to Mike Miller for a layup and the lead, which was solidified by Caron Butler – first with a pull-up jumper, then with a determined second- and third-effort to tip in his own miss.
But those weren’t the plays that the Wizards were talking about.
“I just feel as though we’re getting better,” said Foye. “Even that Atlanta game, we were down, but we just kept fighting and kept fighting. That Chicago game. I just feel that something good is going to happen. I don’t know what. But I just feel that we’re coming together, and we’re just trying to keep everything together as one, just trying to execute our offense and get stops at the end of games. It’s helping us.”
“You can’t be satisfied winning two games in a row,” said Earl Boykins. “We really have to focus on playing consistent basketball and continue to improve. It’s good to get wins. It’s one thing to put yourself in a position to win and you lose. It’s always good when you’re able to finish games, but our effort this last week and a half has been unbelievable.”
Those are signs of the mindset change that Flip Saunders was searching for ten games ago.
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