After setting the bar very high in the season opener on Tuesday, the Wizards are back in Atlanta, where they half showed up just over a week ago for a lackluster preseason loss. But we’re not taking stock in those games, not after what went down in Dallas.
“Just the way we played 48 minutes,” said Antawn Jamison, who was supposed to start shooting the ball again today. “We’ve really stressed being a good road team, and we did a lot of things that entitled for us to be a good road team: stopping runs, playing good defense, and executing our plays offensively.”
The total team performance was reinforced by Flip Saunders’ game management, which was also superb, whether it was finding the right combinations on the floor or making the right play calls out of timeouts.
“Sometimes, when you see him on the sideline, he looks so focused,” said Randy Foye. “I could be on the court and I could say, coach, and he really don’t respond right away. I look at him, and it seems like he’s playing chess in his head with their defense and our offense. He’ll draw something up, and it’s unbelievable where we could get a good shot out of our offense.”
Saunders, though, also delegated plenty to Gilbert Arenas: “On the floor, as I basically told him after the game, he basically controlled the game against Dallas. He ran the show, he called offensive sets, got us into plays, knew what we wanted to do, and he was kind of the conductor of the orchestra in how the game was going to be played so he showed those leadership qualities.”
Ahhh, Arenas, who reminded the press yesterday that he would talk again when he’s forced to. His talking was done against the Mavericks…
“I think it was a big statement game for Gil,” said Foye. “People be coming, ‘Is he okay?’ but I think he showed the league he’s fine. He really didn’t show too much in the preseason, but he’s an unbelievable player. He’s unbelievable at finishing and shooting the ball.”
The Hawks shot 52.9 percent from the floor and had six players score in double figures in their opening win over Indiana, led by Joe Johnson (25 points, 6 assists) and Al Horford (24 points, 16 rebounds).
