It’s every NBA coach’s nightmare: Under 20 seconds on the clock, LeBron James has the ball and he’s staring down your defender. What do you do, hotshot? Double him and leave a teammate open for a jumper, or take your chances one-on-one with the best player in the NBA? Well, the Wizards went with option number two twice last night and came away with a 101-99 victory that had a raucous Verizon Center crowd going crazy. DeShawn Stevenson, not one to be intimidated by King James, forced James into an offensive charge and a missed jump shot on his two end game possessions, giving the Wiz a much needed win over their rivals from Ohio.
The Wiz hounded LeBron into a 9-22 shooting performance as well as seven turnovers. LBJ missed a few gimmes early and didn’t seem to shake out of his funk until later in the second half. Caron Butler, celebrating his 28th birthday, made his return to the court, notching 19 points and five rebounds and approximately 34 “Let’s Go!” exhortations to the crowd. It worked, the atmosphere for last night’s game was playoff-like, a stark contrast to Tuesday’s snoozer against Milwaukee. Butler looked great early (6-13 for 13 points) but looked gassed late, which is to be expected after missing 16 games. After the game, he was so tired, he could only communicate in sentence fragments, “Swag at an all-time high. Feeling good. Good win. Birthday,” he said.
As well as the Wiz played last night (48 percent from the field, 42 points in the paint), Cleveland did as much to shoot themselves in the foot. Sasha Pavlovic fouled out late in the fourth after torching with Wizards with 19 first half points, many coming on open looks from three as Butler was late rotating out defensively. As a team, Cleveland went 1-10 from three point range in the final quarter after shooting 12-22 (55 percent) in the first three quarters. The one make they had came from Damon Jones with eight seconds left in the game. Jones made a point to do Stevenson’s “I can’t feel my face” move to a few Wizards as they headed back to their bench after Washington called timeout. To be continued, then.
