Cavaliers 107, Wizards 102
As soon as Gilbert Arenas checked into his first game of the year on Friday, notices might as well have been placed in the lockers of Kirk Hinrich and Al Thornton. It will only be a matter of time until he replaces one of them in the Wizards starting lineup.
Thornton, a small forward, and Hinrich, a guard, both made compelling arguments in their own respective defenses of why they should retain their place in the starting rotation on Saturday against the LeBron James-less Cleveland Cavaliers.
For Thornton, making his case wasn’t enough. Despite his team-high 23 points, including 12 in the third quarter, he found himself on the bench for the final nine minutes of the fourth, watching the Wizards falter down the stretch in a 107-102 loss.
The player who was in his place on the floor was Arenas, who had 13 points in his first home game and second overall since being suspended in January. Arenas was also part of a group that allowed the Cavaliers (3-3) to put the game away with a 10-0 run with three minutes remaining.
“I said to Al, ‘I made a mistake,’” said Wizards head coach Flip Saunders. “We got into a little bit of rhythm with Gil in there. Gil was making shots, Kirk’s our best defender in pick and rolls, and John [Wall] has to play. We were in a situation where we rolled the dice with Gil making some shots.”
But it was Thornton who pulled the Wizards (1-4) back after they had trailed by 11 points in the first half. Displaying an array of behind-the-back dribbles, spin moves and jump shots, he scored ten points during a 19-5 run to start the second half, giving Washington its first lead since the start of the second quarter with a dunk that put the home team ahead, 66-64.
“Of course, I was a little frustrated, that I had it going, pretty much the whole game, and not to be subbed back in the game, it was frustration,” said Thornton. “But people make mistakes, and you just have to move forward. No hard feelings.”
Hinrich (21 points, four assists, five rebounds) also turned up his game with 17 points in the first half, including the Wizards’ final eight in the second quarter. But with Arenas back and Josh Howard likely right behind him after having been cleared for contact following his serious knee injury last February, the competition for minutes will grow in the coming weeks.
The more immediate task Saturday was the Cavaliers, who kept Wall (13 points, 10 assists, six turnovers) relatively quiet even as he earned his second career double-double. But Washington’s backcourt had trouble shutting down opposing guards Mo Williams (28 points) and Daniel Gibson (19 points) while former Wizard Antawn Jamison sat out his first return to Washington with a sore knee.
Arenas, who was greeted in his homecoming by a massive ovation when he first got up off the bench late in the first quarter, said he didn’t want to take away from what the team was doing, but after missing most of the past month with ankle and groin injuries, everyone is still getting adjusted to having him back.
“I’m trying to get my legs under me and trying to get in shape and still be effective out there,” said Arenas. “There was a point in the fourth quarter where I should’ve subbed myself out for Al because Al had it going on.”
Without Thornton, the Wizards gave a glimpse of the type of unselfish team they’re aiming to be when Andray Blatche (16 points, 15 rebounds) corralled a loose ball, popped it cross-court to Arenas, who quickly skipped it to Hinrich for a 3-pointer to make it 95-93 with 3 minutes, 16 seconds left.
But the Wizards didn’t score again until Blatche hit two free throws with 22.7 seconds remaining, and by then, most of the 14,442 at Verizon Center had already taken Gibson’s 3-pointer, which made the score 103-95 a half-minute earlier, as the cue to depart.
It also left Saunders, for now, with unconvincing evidence that the three-guard lineup is his best option.
“It was a tough situation,” said Saunders. “If we’d have won the game, it would’ve been great playing with them down the stretch. We didn’t win it, and I question myself. I questioned myself the last three minutes about not having Al in there and stuff.”
