Sunday, May 16, 2021

Go, Washington Wizards!

I've been a really bad Washington Wizards fan this season. I thought the Russell Westbrook acquisition was a joke--that he'd end up just playing only a handful or no games in Washington--and I pretty much quit paying attention after the team's poor start. 

Well, at age 32, Russell Westbrook played 65 games for the Wizards this season and averaged 22 points, 12 rebounds and 12 assists a game. Washington won 17 of its last 23 games and finished eighth place in the Eastern Conference. So I was absolutely wrong about this whole deal, and it was my loss that I watched only about 30 total game minutes of the regular season.

The 8 seed qualifies the Wizards to play at the Boston Celtics in the NBA's new "play-in" round of playoffs, which I think is a neat tweak. (Boston beat Washington in two of their three games this season—most recently, 111-110 in Boston on Feb. 28.) A Wizards win would advance them to a seven-game series with the Brooklyn Nets, while a loss would send them to an elimination game against either the Charlotte Hornets or Indiana Pacers. I’m planning to watch the Washington-Boston game Tuesday night at 8 on TNT, figure out who’s on my team and root for them.

4 comments:

  1. Westbrook has been a perfect fit for the Wizards.

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  2. Since I came to DC in 1992, the Bullets/Wizards have advanced to the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals on four occasions. Here are those teams, with their regular season records:

    2017: 49-33
    2015: 46-36
    2005: 45-37
    2014: 44-38

    The Washington basketball team has not reached the Conference Final since the 1978-79 season.

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  3. I’m now planning to watch the Washington-Indiana game Thursday night at 7 Central on TNT and again root for the Wizards. Shaquille O'Neal said last night that a great player doesn't have two bad games in a row, so I'm rolling with Shaq and believing that Westbrook is going to excel against the Pacers.

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