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AUDIO: Jordan | Arenas | Jamison
The Wizards fought through a game that wasn’t going their way through most of the first half, and battled back and forth with the Magic in the final minutes, ultimately hanging on for a one point win over visiting Orlando.
Gilbert Arenas scored 36 points (nine rebounds, seven assists), while Antawn Jamison scored 25 and pulled down 11 boards. Caron Butler scored 20 points, while DeShawn Stevenson added 11.
Butler’s late clutch jumper from the right baseline put the Wizards up 110-108 and Antawn Jamison followed up with two FT’s to give the Wiz what seemed to be an insurmountable lead. But this is the NBA…
Dwight Howard missed a shot from down low, but the loose ball ended up in Keyon Dooling’s hands and he hit a three to pull ORL within one.
So what do the Wiz do? Get the ball in Caron Butler’s hands, who’s shooting FT’s at an 88% clip this season.
He missed both.
“Honestly, I just mentally messed up,” he said. “I just lost focus for a minute. That’s something that will never happen again.”
In the end, Dooling’s jumper to give the Wizards the win was off the mark, giving the Wizards the win.
“We did a good job as far as staying calm and poised and not letting it get out of hand,” said Jamison. “We were fortunate to get the stops we needed down the stretch, those are the things we need to do to be successful. We were fortunate enough to come out with the win.â€
The win gave the Wizards sole possession of first place in the Southeast Division, and extended their overall winning streak to a season-high five games. The Wizards have now won four straight games at home - 7 of their last 8 and 11-3 overall. The last time Washington won at least 11 of its first 14 home games was during the 1984-85 campaign when the Bullets started 11-3 at home.
Washington has now won 13 of their last 16 games, and extended their streak of games with at least 106 points to 13 games (The last team to score at least 106 points in 12 consecutive games was the 1994-95 Phoenix Suns - a 14-game streak).
I think that covers it.
NOTES: Congrats to Antawn Jamison and his wife Ione, who welcomed Antwan Cortez Jamison to the world Thursday. Both mother and son are doing well.
December 29th, 2006 at 10:59 PM
It’s time to warming up those Bentley GT Coupes for the mad dash for the finish line once again before the first snow hits the area.This game will come down to who can sustain there speed and accuracy longest! We are natural speed demons so this fits well with us. I would like to see our Enforcers “Haywood & Booth”produce points, rebounds,steals and blocks!
The bench has to come alive this game and be a beast from the rebounds,blocks,steals,and high percentage baskets and free-throws.
We need production not excuses .
December 29th, 2006 at 11:31 PM
So why was Butler sitting so long? I heard on a post game show that Eddie thought Butler was playing out of control. Is that what the deal was?
December 29th, 2006 at 11:52 PM
Tonights game was a really good test for this team, we were really struggling with our shooting and this game really came down to defence. We played defence when we needed to. Say what you will, but BH was a force in the paint when he needed to be he really made DH think about his layups at the end of the game and he missed them. Iam not sure what the reason was for sitting CB down for so long, but he did what we needed him to do in the 4th(even with the missed free throws)He is clutch.
We will have another test against the Bucks. Gil will need to have a monster game and HayHayHayWood will need to be solid in the paint.
December 30th, 2006 at 12:35 AM
The Bucks are much like the Wizards in my opinion….they have scorers…they like to run….it should be a tough matchup…both times
December 30th, 2006 at 8:15 AM
Just curious? Does anyone knows what Caron did that warranted him to have to sit on the bench for most of the 4th quarter?
It was a great win last night. Not their best performance but a W is a W. They did not start the game with their high energy and I have to admit I got a little bored and channel flipped for a second. Then when they came out second half running their tempo, I figured we had a chance to gut this one out. Hats off to Orlando because they were balling but the Wiz hung in there. Congrats and lets play our game with energy against the Bucks tonight! To secure a win the Wiz are going to have to play their style of ball and impose their will on the Bucks. I hope Haywood will be good to go and hats of to Blatche. He needs more playing time. Still not to keen on Hayes and I’m waiting on him to finally get into some sort of consistent groove. GO WIZ!
December 30th, 2006 at 11:02 AM
I wonder how is Haywood’s ankle. Wiz cannot afford to loose another big man. Especially that Haywood has been playing well in the recent Wizards run.
December 30th, 2006 at 1:26 PM
I love Tough Juices game because he brings so much to the court but so times the turnovers gets out of hand and the steals are not made to equal out. It could definitely be a sign of fatigue and concentration so maybe a little sitdown was needed to reflect and get it together. It all comes down to possessions and the more we have the better chances for us to win but when we start getting fatigued and losing concentration is when we start losing games! The coach recognized CB was not his usual self so he made the right call in my opinion. The end result was a Big Fat WWWWWWWWW!!!!
December 30th, 2006 at 4:18 PM
Iam not so keen on Hayes either. Has anybody noticed that we get outscored by almost every bench we have played? This is very concerning to me. We have no points comming of the bench and no true 6th man. We may need to look at trading someone soon. Trever Ariza looked really good to me, he played with hunger and energy, I noticed him when he was with NY and thought he would play well here.
Anybody know the status of Etan? How long before he and Brendan can tag team the paint again?
December 30th, 2006 at 4:49 PM
we got the two hottest teams in the east tonight and if you love the nba like me then this game is nice agent zero vs the preacher’s son (michael redd) the wizards need to tighten the defense tonight in order to win this game it going to be tough and are bench need to be productive and since i am on this topic i am wondering what up with hayes and why he settle for the jumper instead of driving to the hole and i wonder now if we need to make some moves for are bench and yes I LOVE TOUGH JUICE but when it the fourth quarter with 4 minutes to go he is somewhat out of control lucky it has not hindrance us.