For the third straight year, the Wizards will face the Cleveland Cavaliers in the opening round of the NBA playoffs. Now what?
Yet to be decided is who will have the home-court advantage. If Washington (42-38) wins its last two and Cleveland (43-36), which faced woeful Miami last night after press time, loses two of its last three, the Wizards would earn the No. 4 seed and the home-court edge.
While Washington plays host to Indiana tonight and at Orlando Wednesday, Cleveland travels to Philadelphia on Monday and plays host to Detroit on Wednesday.
Over the weekend, a first-round series with Cleveland was assured for the third straight year. Washington’s win over Philadelphia Saturday, coupled with Detroit’s victory over Toronto Sunday, guaranteed the Wizards the No. 5 seed. Philadelphia (40-40) and Toronto (40-40) could catch Washington in the standings, but the Wizards own tiebreakersover both, and if all three were to finish with the same record.
The Wizards’ 109-93 win over Philadelphia Saturday was a huge boost for a team that struggled mightily in a 102-74 loss the previous night in Detroit and for the first three quarters against the 76ers.
With forward Caron Butler (bruised knee) out the of lineup, Washington was rescued by forward Antawn Jamison (25 points, 13 rebounds) and guards Gilbert Arenas (20 points, 7 assists) and DeShawn Stevenson (19 points, 7 assists), who hit 5 of 7 shots from 3-point range.
Doubling its assist output from the previous night, Washington used ball movement and guard-the-paint defense to out-score Philadelphia 31-9 in the fourth period.
After Friday’s ugly loss, the Wizards apparently heeded the words of center Brendan Haywood.
“You don’t really get past a game like this, you learn from [it],” said Haywood after the Detroit loss. “You can’t just look at it like they came out hot and we came out cold. Instead we played a bad brand of basketball. They had 28 assists, we had 12. We shot 27 percent from the field and played as individuals.”
In keeping with the theme of this injury-riddled season, nothing is coming easy for the Wizards.
Tonight, when they play their lone game in their last five against a team with a losing record, it comes against Indiana (35-45), which is fighting to extend its season. With wins in its final two games and losses by Atlanta (37-43) in its last two, Indiana (35-45) would earn the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference.
