Wall, teammates buoyed by their recent success
John Wall’s favorite moment of his rookie season in the NBA wasn’t his near quadruple-double (29 points, 13 assists, nine steals, eight turnovers) in an overtime win over Philadelphia on Nov. 2 or his first career triple-double (19 points, 13 assists, 10 rebounds) three games later at Houston. It wasn’t his career-high 32 points at the Los Angeles Clippers on March 12 or his banked, game-winning 3-pointer against Boston on Jan. 22.
“Favorite?” Wall said when asked to choose after the Wizards’ home finale win over the Celtics on Monday. “The road win in Cleveland, to be honest. That was good to get a road win so we wouldn’t have to be talking about it or getting the other one so we wouldn’t have to go down in history.”
It’s fitting that Wall will be back at Quicken Loans Arena one more time. The Wizards (23-58) take on the Cavaliers (18-63) to finish a season that is concluding in a manner that the No. 1 overall pick in last summer’s draft would approve of, with the celebration of team victories, not overinflated individual accomplishments.
| UP NEXT |
| Wizards at Cavaliers |
| When » Wednesday, 8 p.m. |
| Where » Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland, Ohio |
| TV » Comcast SportsNet |
Five wins in seven essentially meaningless games in April won’t turn Washington into a contender next season. But the way the Wizards have prevailed in close games has been enough to encourage Wall and coach Flip Saunders that talking about postseason potential is no longer taboo.
“It definitely feels like we’re going to go with momentum into next year, and it’s a great feeling, knowing we at least have a stable group that knows how to play together,” center JaVale McGee said. “In the beginning of the year, we were all new. We didn’t know each other, and we were trying stuff out. But we figured it out.”
When the Wizards lost 17 out of 20 from late November to early January and another 16 out of 18 from late January to early March, the season couldn’t have been over soon enough. That’s certainly changed over the last three weeks.
“It’s definitely been fast,” guard Jordan Crawford said. “But I realized yesterday I played like 25 games, so that seems like a lot of games for me straight out of college, where you play about 30. It’s been fun, but yeah, I definitely don’t want it to end.”
