Washington hangs on to beat Portland, 97-92
Rare has been the occasion this season when Flip Saunders could take blame for the opposition’s biggest surge of the game and then comfortably move on because it didn’t actually cost him a victory.
But the Wizards are moving on without suspended guard Gilbert Arenas. Just as they’ve withstood the indefinite departure of their biggest star, they weathered the blows from visiting Portland before delivering a knockout in the fourth quarter for a 97-92 win in front of 12,209 at Verizon Center.
“We’re playing with a little more spirit at the end of games,” said Saunders, whose team won a game decided by five points or less for the first time in 10 tries. “We’re playing to win and not to lose.”
The foundation still nearly crumbled in the third period, when Andre Miller (22 points) scored 10 points in a row for the Blazers (25-17), sparking a run over two and a half minutes that turned a 10-point Wizards lead into a three-point deficit.
But with leading scorer Brandon Roy (hamstring) already scratched before the game, Miller and LaMarcus Alridge (22 points) both went scoreless down the stretch. Meanwhile, Mike Miller — returning from his latest injury absence, a four-game stretch caused by a lingering right calf strain — gave the Wizards (14-26) the lead for good, 90-88, with 2 minutes, 47 seconds to play.
“I think a lot is the fact that we understand what we got now,” said Miller (13 points, 4 assists). “We don’t know if [Arenas will] be back or when he’ll be back. We understand that this is what we got in the locker room. We’ve got to make the most of it. We’re playing better right now.”
“When Portland made a run, it wasn’t because we weren’t playing hard,” said Saunders. “I think that over these last seven games, we’ve had pretty good efforts through everything.”
That effort was reflected in Caron Butler (18 points, 9 rebounds), who made a second- and third-effort on his own miss to close out the game, and Randy Foye (19 points, 5 assists), who continues to improve at point guard in the face of harsh in-game criticism from Saunders. Antawn Jamison’s 28 points have become as reliable as the dawn.
“I just feel that something good is going to happen,” said Foye. “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.”
