Saturday, May 13, 2017

J-Speaks: Resilient Wizards


If there is one word to describe the Washington Wizards this season, it is resilient. They overcame a 2-8 start to this season to finish with 49 wins and won the Southeast Division, their first division title since the 1978-79 campaign. They won Game 5 at home and closed out their first-round opponent the Atlanta Hawks in Game 6 on their home court. They routed their Semifinal opponent in Games 3 and 4 after losing Games 1 and 2 in Boston, MA. They were dismantled in Game 5, but bounced back thanks to their dynamic backcourt and the help of a first timer in the postseason.
After a 1 for 9 first half from the field in Game 6 on Friday night, scoring just three points in the opening half, and missed 11 of his first 12 shots, All-Star lead guard for the Wizards John Wall scored 23 points in the second, including the eventual game-winning three-pointer that gave his team a 92-91 win in the nation’s capital to tie the series at 3-3 and force a winner take all Game 7 on Monday night. It will be the first Game 7 for the Wizards since their winner take all tilt with the San Antonio Spurs of the Eastern Conference Finals on May 18, 1979. It was also the last time the boys from D.C. were in the battling for the right to go to the NBA Finals.
“The last play was for me to get to the corner and Brad come open, but he didn’t’ get an opportunity to get open and I didn’t’ want to get a five-second violation” Wall, who was just 9 for 25 from the floor on the night, with eight assists said to the press after the win.
“So, I just came and got the ball from Otto [Porter, Jr.]. Just looked the defender in the eye and took a shot I work on and it went in.”
When the game-winning triple by Celtics’ All-Star guard Isaiah Thomas, who had 27 points on the night was off the mark at the final buzzer, Wall, the former No. 1 overall pick in the 2010 draft stood atop the scorer’s table, and popped his No. 2 jersey while yelling and celebrating with the 20,173 in attendance at the Verizon Center, as the Wizards on their first elimination game at home in their last eight chances.
That moment Wall said after the game was how much love he had for the District of Columbia, his teammates and how much fight and stick-to-itiveness the Wizards had to not let their season end like it in Game 6 of the 2014 Semis versus the Indiana Pacers and to the previously mentioned Hawks in 2015.
“I ain’t going home. Don’t come to my city wearing all black talking about it’s a funeral,” Wall, who had 10 of his 23 second-half points in the fourth period said to Salters about the Celtics coming to the game wearing all black, like what the Wizards did in a game in the regular season against the C’s.
Wall also said in the press room that, “A lot of people doubted us in this series after we was down 2-0. A lot of guys doubted us about winning this game at home. The last two years I was in the playoffs, we lost a Game 6 here and we just had a lot of heart and I wanted the city to know that we love them for all the support they give us. Without their amazing fan supporting, we wouldn’t had won this game and all we ask for is one more game and we got it.”
“We worked too hard for this and all we asked for is a Game 7 50-50 and that’s all we asked for. We do this for these fans without them we wouldn’t had won this game.” 
Beal, who was averaging 19.4 points, a little under a career-high of 23.1 points he averaged during the regular season, had a series best and game-high 33 points on the night. The former Florida Gator had shot just 43.2 percent from the field leading up to Game 6, but turned that around with a stellar 15 for 26 from the floor.
What made the Wizards victory even phenomenal is the fact that 59 of the team’s 92 points came from Wall and Beal, including a combined 23 of their team’s 26 points in the fourth quarter. The only other Wizards to score in double-figures was playoff neophyte Markieff Morris, who had a much needed 16 points to go along with 11 rebounds.
To bring how important Morris’ contribution was into fuller context, Porter, Jr., the Wizards other starting forward and Kelly Oubre, Jr off the bench went scoreless. Bogan Bogdanovic was just 2 for 6 on the night off the bench, including 0 for 3 from three-point range in 17 minutes. Starting center Marcin Gortat, who battled foul trouble the entire evening had 13 rebounds, but scored just four points in 25 minutes.
“Love him. Love coaching him,” Wizards’ head coach Scott Brooks said of his starting power forward. “I like his toughness. He just competes. He doesn’t say a whole lot. You have to pull teeth to get a good morning out of him. He just a good guy. He plays hard and he gives great minutes. He’s one of the big reasons we’ve had a successful season. He’s one of the big reasons we’re going to Game 7.”
The Wizards on the evening shot just 43 percent from the field; were an abysmal 5 for 24 from three-point range and just 13 for 21 from the charity stripe.
If that wasn’t enough, the Wizards trailed 69-66 entering the final period and they were down late 87-82.
What gave them a chance to force Game 7, thanks to Wall’s heroics is that they out-rebounded the C’s 59-47; registered seven blocks; only committed 12 turnovers and outscored them in the paint 48-26. They also held the Celtics to 40.5 percent from the floor on the evening and to just 11 for 35 from three-point range.
“They came in and played hard,” Beal, who scored 13 points in the fourth quarter said after the game of the Celtics effort on Friday night. “They did a good job of competing, but we had the will to win. We did whatever it took. We stayed the course of the game with the last two, three minutes. We stayed locked in, regardless if we were up five, down seven, down five, however much we were down, we did a good job of just locking in and we both [him and Wall] made some big plays down the stretch. That’s something we’ve wanted to get past this point for a long time. We didn’t want to go home on our home floor. We just wanted to give ourselves another chance and we got that, so we got to take full advantage of it.”
It also helped that Wall despite the rough start made 8 of his final 13 shots including the previously mentioned game-winning triple with 3.7 seconds left.
“I’m a guy that I don’t care. I’m not going out without a fight. If I go 0 for 30, I’m willing to lose like that,” Wall, whose Wizards became the first team in the 2017 NBA Playoffs to win a home postseason game when facing elimination said to Salters. Teams in this position entering Friday night were 0 and 10.
Wall also said about where he was back in August and about those in attendance to see his finest hour as a pro that, “I got too much heart. I put in too much work. Double knee surgery. Look at this couldn’t ask for more.”
Besides the game-winner he hit, Wall also put his team in position defensively to win the game as well.
He said to Salters that he remembered that the last time the Wizards lost to the Celtics at home in the regular season was via an over the top pass to forward Jae Crowder that ended up in a game-winning layup.
On the Celtics final possession, they tried that same play to Kelly Olynyk with 3.5 seconds remaining, but Oubre, Jr. used the Celtics foul to give.
Before the Celtics final opportunity, Wall instructed Gortat to go from guarding the inbound pass to protecting the paint.
The result was a fall away three-point attempt by All-Star guard Isaiah Thomas, who had 27 points on the night, but his game-winning attempt clanged on the rim and did not drop.
In those two plays showed the growth of Wall and the Wizards from two seasons back where back in the 2014 and 2015 playoffs lost in six games to the Indiana Pacers and the Hawks at home. Now they will play in their first Game 7 since the 1979.
The hope is that the Wizards will have a better showing then they did in Game 5, where they run off the TD Garden court in Boston, MA on Wednesday night 123-101. If they win at TD Garden on Monday night, it will the first time either this regular season or the postseason that the road team will garner a victory in 10 games this season.
If the Wizards have any chance of reaching their first Eastern Conference Finals in 38 years, they off course need Wall and Beal to show out like the dynamic back court they have shown they can be at times, but the rest of the supporting cast in Gortat, Oubre, Jr., Porter, Jr., Bogdanovic and Morris need to match what the Celtics’ Crowder, Avery Bradley, who had 27 points on the night, Olynyk, Terry Rozier, Amir Johnson and Marcus Smart will bring on both ends.
In Games 1 and 2, the Wizards got off to great starts, even led by double-digits in both games, but their inability to maintain that high level of play and as Brooks said during the presser on Friday night, his team forgets to do the little things like defend consistently, fight for 50-50 lose ball or give up second chance opportunities. Those are the kind of things that the Wizards must do if they expect to win Game 7.
“It’s my life. This is what I asked for,” Wall said to Salters. “To fight hard down 2-0. To win. All we got is one more game left to go to the Conference Finals. I couldn’t ask for more.”
That one game for the right to meet the defending NBA champion and well rested Cleveland Cavaliers and four-time MVP and three-time Finals MVP LeBron James will on Monday night at 8 p.m. from TD Garden in Boston, MA on TNT.


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