Wizards 103, Timberwolves 96
The Wizards couldn’t stop Kevin Love’s remarkable streak of double-doubles. But Trevor Booker proved there is one definitive way to keep rebounds away of the relentless ball-hawking Minnesota forward: taking the high road.
With three dunks in a row, including consecutive putback slams over top of Love, Booker fought through his own personal battle with a stomach virus and personified the hard-nosed effort the Wizards conjured to snap their seven-game losing streak in a 103-96 win over the Timberwolves.
The rookie forward was all alone as he soared in from the right baseline to put the Wizards (16-45) up for good, 86-85, with 5:24 remaining. But forty-one seconds later, he sent the Verizon Center crowd of 18,216 into a frenzy when he flew in down the lane, rose up, literally took Cartier Martin’s missed three-pointer out of Love’s hands and threw it down for an 88-85 advantage, slapping the backboard on his way back to earth.
“I just saw the ball up there so I tried to go up and get it,” said Booker. “Then I saw that I was pretty high. I just decided to dunk it.”
“I probably should’ve tipped the ball,” said Love. “But it’s just that I got off at the 10th floor. He got off at the 12th.”
But Booker wasn’t done, not even giving Love a chance when he jammed home another putback to make it 90-85 with 4:04 on the clock.
Written on the white board in the Wizards locker room afterward was a simple equation: “Booker + Immodium AD = WIN.”
Booker, who had taken two medicines before the game and another at halftime, had one word to describe how he was feeling: “Weak.”
“It was real tough,” he said. “I didn’t know if I was going to make it or not. Just playing most of the minutes in the fourth quarter. It was hurting. I was hurting, but I just fought through it.”
Love still paced the Timberwolves (15-49) with 20 points and 21 rebounds, his third straight game with at least 20 and 20 and his 50th consecutive double-double, one shy of Moses Malone’s record of 51 game with Houston over the 1978-79 and 1979-80 seasons.
But the Timberwolves All-Star wasn’t the only won with full stat sheets. John Wall (18 points, 8 assists, career-high 11 rebounds) and Andray Blatche (20 points, 7 rebounds, 7 assists) both flirted with triple-doubles, helping to make up for the absence of leading scorer Nick Young, who missed the game with the flu. With Josh Howard also sitting out with a pulled left hamstring, Wizards head coach Flip Saunders inserted Rashard Lewis back into the starting lineup despite the veteran’s lingering sore right knee along with rookie Jordan Crawford, who made his first NBA start.
After trailing by nine in the third quarter, Washington also got a boost at both ends of the floor from Maurice Evans (season-high 15 points), who hit three out of four 3-point attempts in the final period and helped bottle up Michael Beasley (18 points) in the second half.
“The main thing tonight was just about going hard and getting the win,” said Blatche. “We’ve been working hard. As long as we come with the same kind of emotion and attitude, we should win a lot more games. We just gotta bring it every night. We can’t take no nights off, from me to everybody to the bench.”
The victory, after the Wizards had won only twice in their previous 18 games, was also a fitting tribute for Saunders the day after the death of his 90-year-old mother, an avid supporter not only of her son but also a fan of the NBA.
“As one of the guys said, ‘Your Mom’s probably got her Wizards pom-poms up there. She’s cheering a little bit,’” said Saunders. “It meant a lot just from the standpoint that I know how an avid supporter she is of me individually, but also how much of a supporter and a fan she was.”
