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Wizards fans: our long national nightmare is over! (For now, at least.)

The Washington Wizards somehow eked out an 84-82 win over the visiting Portland Trailblazers—despite going scoreless for almost seven minutes of the fourth quarter and nearly blowing a 15-point lead. The win ensures that the Wiz, while still pretty awful, won’t be setting any NBA records for early-season futility. Their 12-game losing streak was pretty bad, but pales in comparison to the 0-18 start put together by the 2009-10 New Jersey Nets.

”Well, we made it interesting, but we won,” head coach Randy Wittman said after the game.

Trevor Ariza had 14 points and Kevin Seraphin added 10 points and 10 rebounds for Washington, which ended the third quarter on a 23-7 run. Three minutes into the fourth quarter, the home team had pushed the lead to 15 and seemed to be cruising along comfortably. But lest we forget: these are our Wizards.

The Trailblazers responded with 16 unanswered points, and the boos began to rain down. Nothing could save the Wizards now, right? Not the Wizards Girls (we learned last night via the “Get to know a Wizards Girl” jumbotron segment that 75 percent of them prefer paper books to e-books; who knew?), not hype man Big Tigger, not an impeccably dressed yet still injured John Wall. Not even G-Wiz, our lovable yet unidentifiable mascot—I think he/she’s supposed to be a Wizard but he/she really looks more like Barney after a healthy dose of Anacostia River water—could save us now.

The Wizards, though, had other plans. They saved themselves. Jordan Crawford, who had 19 points, sunk a three-pointer with 2:06 to play, snapping the scoring drought. The Wiz pulled back in front on Emeka Okafor’s two free throws with 39.1 seconds remaining. The Blazers turned the ball over on their ensuing possession, but the Wiz gave it right back after Nene was called for an offensive foul. Only after Portland missed a buzzer-beater could those in attendance breathe a sigh of relief.

Wiseman (Photo by Pablo Maurer)

An estimated 4,000-5,000 fans were sprinkled throughout the cavernous Verizon Center, and as the final seconds ticked away there was an underwhelming, completely controlled sense of half-excitement. “Cut the nets down!” screamed one particularly intoxicated patron from the upper deck. (Alright, it was me.) Fellow DCist contributor Andrew Wiseman and I scored two tickets on StubHub, taking advantage of the flood of seats available on the site for pennies on the dollar. Our two upper-deck seats cost us a total of $7, and we certainly got our money’s worth.

With the monkey off their collective backs, maybe the Wizards can string together a few wins now. (Probably not, though; they get New York and Miami in their next two games.) One thing is for sure—the team is likely relieved to get its first notch in the “W” column.

”We just broke through the ice,” Wittman said. “I’ve lived in Minnesota for 15, 17 years. That ice was four or five feet deep, but it’s broken through now.”

Wait, does Randy Wittman think he’s coaching the Capitals?