The overhead screen at Verizon Center showed repeated montages Saturday night during the timeouts of the Washington-Charlotte game of recently passed Wizards owner Abe Pollin, including famous scenes of him receiving the 1978 NBA championship trophy and flying home with it stationed in the seat next to him.
There was no indication the Wizards players have seen those videos and images, as they were utterly devoid of the inspiration that helped them win two games in the wake of Pollin’s death. Instead, they suffered their worst home loss of the season to the Bobcats, 92-76, in front of 17,311.
“Disappointed, embarrassed, mad, all of them could be adjectives to describe how we played tonight,” said Wizards head coach Flip Saunders. “I didn’t see it coming, especially after a game like we played last night, where we really controlled the tempo of the game, played hard and dictated how the game was played.”
After arguably their best win of the year in Miami on Friday, the Wizards (5-10) lost by double-digits for the eighth time, on the second night of back-to-back games for the third time in four tries, and matched their lowest scoring output of the year.
“We have not proven the ability of preparation on our own, to be able to prepare to go play,” said Wizards head coach Flip Saunders. “That’s something that was disappointing, and the sense of urgency, we didn’t have a sense of urgency tonight.”
No kidding. Antawn Jamison, who came into the night with four double-doubles in five games, had zero rebounds – the first time since 2004 that he’d played at least 26 minutes without grabbing a single board.
“As far as individual numbers, when you lose, when you get your butt kicked like that, it’s not going to go well,” said Jamison. “It’ll be a long time before that happens again. It was one of those nights you couldn’t get it going on both ends of the floor.”
Gilbert Arenas, who leads Washington with 100 free throw attempts, didn’t make a single trip to the line and finished with a season-low two points.
“I’m not going to go out there and try to score 30 when we have a lot of offensive players here,” said Arenas. “Yesterday, I was 4 for 7, today I was 3 for 11. I’m going to take the shots when I think that’s suitable for me. Other than that, the offense is a load on everybody else.”
The Bobcats (7-9), also coming off a victory the night before against Cleveland, carried the load just fine, winning their fourth straight, led by 14 points and 14 rebounds from Gerald Wallace, one six different Charlotte players to score in double figures.
Caron Butler was one of just three Wizards in double-figures with a team-high19 points, but 13 came after the Wizards were already down by 15 points early in the third quarter.
In a locker room full of mixed messages – and with his right hand wrapped – he still preferred a shaky defense for what hardly feels like momentum.
“The last three games, we won two games,” he said. “I’ll take that, and let’s start another streak.”
