We all know what happened in the last round of the playoffs when the Washington Wizards recovered from a distastrous pair of opening games before righting the ship and vanquishing the Chicago Bulls, but DCist is going to go out on a limb and say the outlook isn’t quite so rosey this time around. After all, we don’t expect Dwayne Wade to pull a Ben Gordon and disappear for games at a time. In fact, last night Wade became just the fifth player in NBA history to record at least 30 points, 15 assists and five rebounds in a playoff game. You might recognize the names of the other four; Magic Johnson, Jerry West, Walt Frazier and Oscar Robertson.
If you ask us, DCist thought this series was over before it even began. In fact, it was over as soon as the Wiz defeated the Bulls and put on those “Round Two” t-shirts. They might as well have read “Just Happy To Be Here” because that was the message they were sending the Heat.
And so far in this series the message has been recieved loud and clear. We’ve been harping on this since the last round but Miami’s bench is outperforming Washington’s bench by a large margin. Compounding the problem was the injury Etan Thomas suffered last night, putting his availability for the rest of the series in doubt. And now some of the Wizards are lobbying for Kwame Brown to be reinstated.
Still, as bad as it’s been in the last two games, there is alot to be positive about from Game 2. Last night was just the second time in six games that the Heat have failed to win a playoff game by double digits. Already injured Antawn Jamison gutted out 41 minutes and had 32 points and five boards. Gilbert Arenas chipped in 28 points and five assists. In fact, had Larry Hughes not started 0-11 from the field, Game 2 might have gone a different way.
But in the NBA, results are all that matter and the Wiz are in a hole as they head home for Thursday’s Game 3. “You’ve got to get smacked in the face before you toughen up,” Arenas said. “They’re beating us down right now. But we’re not afraid. We’re going to keep fighting.”
(Image from the AP)
