Wizards 115, Cavaliers 107
During his three weeks out with a shoulder injury, Andray Blatche could only watch as his Wizards teammates slowly began to show faint signs of the maturity, toughness and determination that they’d sought all season.
Blatche decided that when came back, he wanted to be part of it. On Friday, he was, and his career high-matching 36 points and a career-high 19 rebounds were just one of multiple standout individual performances in Washington’s 115-107 victory over Cleveland in front of 17,427 at Verizon Center.
“The whole time I was out, it made me see that don’t take nothing for granted,” said Blatche, who pulled down 16 boards at the offensive end, the most by any player in the NBA this season and enough to set a new franchise record. “So when I came back, I just came back with a lot of energy, and I’m just happy to be playing again.”
The Wizards (19-56) were equally happy to have Blatche back in the starting lineup for the first time since March 8, especially with a usually list of absences due to injury increased by one thanks to John Wall’s suspension for his altercation with Miami center Zydrunas Ilgauskas on Wednesday. Without Wall, fellow rookie Jordan Crawford got his first start at point guard, and recent NBDL call-up Othyus Jeffers made his first NBA start at shooting guard.
Crawford, two nights after carrying the Wizards with a career-high 39 points, finished with his first career triple double (21 points, 11 assists, 10 rebounds) and Jeffers (13 points, 4 rebounds, 3 steals) scored in double-figures for the second straight game.
Combined with Wall’s triple double against Houston and JaVale McGee’s against Chicago, the Wizards became the first team in NBA history to have two rookies with triple doubles in the same season and the first team since the 2003-04 Los Angeles Lakers to have three players reach that threshold in the same year.
“I just wanted to make sure we played a team game,” said Crawford, who had 15 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists in the second half and came out of the training room afterward with an icepack wrapped around his lower back. “Dray was back, so we had another low post scorer. I didn’t feel I had to do that much. I just wanted to get the team involved and pick my spots.”
Blatche was dominant from the outset against the lowly Cavaliers (15-60), taking 22 points and 12 rebounds into halftime, and he added another 12 points and six boards during the game-changing third quarter.
“He rebounded his own shots, didn’t he?” Jeffers joked. “He did a Moses Malone. I told him to go for 30 and 30, but I guess he ran out of gas at the end.”
“Dray’s caught a lot of criticism from people that he doesn’t play hard,” Wizards head coach Flip Saunders. “I think Dray’s come back, in two games, he’s probably had his two – he’s probably worked as hard and done more fundamental things these last two games maybe since he’s been here, how hard he’s played.”
Trailing after two periods, 57-52, the Wizards opened the second half with a 16-4 run, including 14 points in a row. Crawford blocked a shot from Baron Davis (10 points, 11 assists), spun past the Cavaliers point guard as he retrieved the ball and then took off down the floor and dropped a pass between his legs to Blatche for the dunk to bring Washington back to within one, 61-60.
“I knew it was going to come,” Blatche said of the pass. “But I didn’t know how it was going to get there.”
One the next Cleveland possession, Blatche picked off a pass from Davis then fed Jeffers on the break for another slam and the lead. The Wizards extended their advantage to seven before the Cavaliers closed the gap back to one by the end of the third, 83-82, only to pull away again when Crawford dished twice, including one no-look left-handed bullet, to McGee, whose 25 points were three short of his career high, and once to Yi Jianlian during an 11-0 run. Despite 26 points from Ramon Sessions and 21 from J.J. Hickson, Cleveland got no closer than five points the rest of the way.
“I think as a team, everyone is growing and gaining so much confidence,” Wizards forward Maurice Evans said. “That’s what you want at the end of the year, a team that’s going to get stronger.”
