6:29 AM EDT…Dave Johnson checking in and ready for our final road game of the season. It is hard to believe it is here and with the way the team is playing I don’t want the season to end and neither do the players.“That’s the saddest part,” said John Wall. “You play this game that you love and work because you want to be in the playoffs. We’ve got a lot to look forward to this summer and prepare ourselves for next year. If we add a couple of pieces, we know what we have on this team and what we can do when we play together.”Wall was terrific in his game management on Monday in a one-sided win over the Bobcats. Wall had 16 points and 14 assists. Nene led the Wizards off the bench with 18 points and the Bobcats never seriously threatened. That was a sign of growth for the Wizards. They did not play down to the level of the opponent of fall into the trap of a trap game. Kevin Seraphin is the leader for most improved Wizards’ player, but Jan Vesely is having a strong finish to his rookie season. On Monday 16 points on 8 for 8 shooting from the field was impressive by Vesely, but he is so much more than any numbers. Vesely’s instincts and feel for the game are something some players never get. Vesely needs to working on getting a mid-range jumper, but his instincts are something that you can’t teach.

UPDATE…Kyrie Irving is doubtful for tonight’ s game with the stomach flu.

We invite you  to join the Blog  party tonight. We start at 7:00 PM  on the Washington Wizards Radio Network and 106.7 FM… Check  out our list of affiliates…

Yours truly   will be ready to connect with you  as the game goes on. We start once we get set at the arena and then tip off  7:oo PM

Wizards and  Cavaliers  and don’t forget listen live link http://www.nba.com/allaccess/watchListen.html

Wizards Report

Listen to today’s Wizards Report for a preview of tonight’s #WizCavs game.

In today’s report Maurice Evans discusses the strong finish, President Ernie Grunfeld talks about the team, and we hear from head coach Randy Wittman.

Nene Takes Team to Dinner

The Wizards arrived in Miami Friday evening and Nene decided to take some of his “dudes” out to Fogo De Chao, a Brazilian steakhouse on South Beach.

CLICK FOR DINNER PHOTOS

Many of the big guys got in on the dinner (Booker, Seraphin, J. Singleton, Cook), and Cartier Martin (repping the guards) and his family joined the party for a festive evening filled with an overwhelming amount of meats.

Martin would go on to score a career-high 22 points in Saturday night’s win over Miami, which James Singleton jokingly attributed to Friday night’s dinner in the postgame locker room.

One of the funnier moments of the night came when some of the players, with Nene’s encouragement, tried chicken hearts, which had Trevor Booker feeling as if he was on the show Fear Factor:

Booker summed up the night best in one sentence:

“We had great food, a lot of laughs, and had a great time.”

Nene concurred with Booker and hopes to bring the entire team out next season to enjoy the ethnic cuisine he is accustomed to.

Booker and Seraphin Enjoying Dinner

Nene Plays FIFA

Then on Saturday afternoon, we stopped by Nene’s hotel room for a few games of FIFA ’12 on XBOX, where Nene was king again. Playing as Barcelona, he continued his dominance and awed the room with some fancy maneuvers on the virtual pitch.

Footage of Nene first missing a golden chance, but then scoring and celebrating:

This all led to Saturday night’s game vs. the Heat, where Nene wrapped up the Miami trip with the biggest win of all as his lay-in with 0.5 seconds remaining gave the Wizards the 86-84 victory.

The play was perfectly executed by Wall and Nene and looked like something that two guys playing together for ten years would run, not ten games.

It was a great way to wrap up the trip and the team boarded the plane back to D.C. with their first three game winning streak of the season!

-Jeremy Hyman
WashingtonWizards.com

6:34 AM EDT Dave Johnson checking in.  This winning is fun.The Wizards now have three straight wins over teams that were motivated by playoff position. The Chicago Bulls and Heat are battling for the top seed in the Eastern Conference. The Milwaukee Bucks’ loss to the Wizards essentially killed their playoff hopes. The Wizards have not win four games in-a-row since December of 2007  and have that chance tonight when they host the Charlotte Bobcats. Saturday’s win over the Heat was punctuated by Nene’s  slam dunk off a feed from John Wall with 0.5 seconds left.

“The last play of the game is part of the process of paying attention and executing out of a timeout, and we couldn’t have done that any better,” Wizards’ head coach Randy Wittman explained. “It was a heck of a find by John (Wall) and Nene to get it to go down.

Having Nene back in the lineup has reduced Kevin Seraphin’s impact and he finished with17 points.  Nene’s return from a ten-game absence because of a foot injury is nothing but a positive.

“He (Nene) knows his spots,” said Wall. “He makes it easier for you.  He can post up and he can pass it.  He also makes it easier in transition when I’m pushing the ball.  He can seal his man off too.  He’s someone that can score the ball, shoot jump shots, and stretch the defense for you.  Like I said, he does the little things.”

Cartier Martin added a career high 22 points against the Heat.

The Bobcats enter tonight’s game with a 20-game losing streak. On Sunday the Bobcats lost at home to Sacramento 114-88 and have been outscored by an average of 15.6 points during their skid. The Bobcats are 7-56 (.111) and need one win out of their final three games to avoid the NBA’s all-time worst winning percentage set by the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers when they finished 9-73 (.110).

We invite you  to join the Blog  party tonight. We start at 7:00 PM  on the Washington Wizards Radio Network and 106.7 FM… Check  out our list of affiliates…

Yours truly   will be ready to connect with you  as the game goes on. We start once we get set at the arena and then tip off  7:oo PM

Wizards and  Bobcats and don’t forget listen live link http://www.nba.com/allaccess/watchListen.html

Wizards Report

Listen to today’s Wizards Report with Dave Johnson for a preview of tonight’s #WizBobcats game.

8:41 AM EDT… Dave Johnson checking in from rainy Miami…Just keep playing hard. That’s what this Wizards team is all about. Jordan Crawford had a bad ankle and would have been excused had he said he wanted to sit out against Milwaukee. Instead Crawford scored 32 points. Nene had missed 10 games with a foot injury, but despite the record he was determined to return and scored 14 points in 18 minutes.

“It was a real boost because nobody thought he was playing,” Crawford said of Nene, ” He has been dressing but we didn’t know he was going to play until we saw him check into the game.”

Head coach Randy Wittman noted:

“I like where we are at. I like our demeanor heading into the last week of the season. We are going out fighting and that means something going into next year. We don’t know what next year will bring, but obviously everyone is trying to make their points.”

The Wizards 121-112 win over the Bucks was another victory over a playoff motivated team. Bucks’ hea coach Scott Skiles added:

“They deserved to win. They played harder than us, they played better than us. We tried to give ourselves an opportunity there late, but we just had tremendous difficulty all night long controlling the penetration. They have some talented offensive players and they took it to us.”

We keep sating better days ahead and I think we are getting a sneak preview of that.

We invite you  to join the Blog  party tonight. We start at 7:30 PM  on the Washington Wizards Radio Network and 106.7 FM… Check  out our list of affiliates…

Yours truly   will be ready to connect with you  as the game goes on. We start once we get set at the arena and then tip off  7:30 PM

Wizards and  Heat ….don’t forget listen live link http://www.nba.com/allaccess/watchListen.html

6:28 AM EDT…Dave Johnson checking in and looking forward to the Wizards trying to make it two wins in a row. Monday’s win over the Bulls was impressive. The Bulls were without Derrick Rose and Luol Deng, but the Wizards continued to miss Nene and Trevor Booker. In a game of grit and determination, the Wizards prevailed. Head coach Randy Wittman:

 “They responded tonight.  We talked about getting our edge back.  It was good to see them respond after a couple of bloopers we’ve had lately.  We talked that if we’re going to go down, we want to got down aggressively.  Tonight our defense was good, I thought that Mo Evans, for not having played much, came out ready and played well for us.  This league is about opportunities and you have to be ready.  I hope our young guys learn from that.  Brian Cook also played well and all that gave us a good team effort.”

In short the Wizards would not have won without Evans’ 14 points and Cook’s eight rebounds. Before playing on Saturday against the Cavaliers, Evans did not play in 12 consecutive games.

The season is winding down, but the Wizards as a team are growing.

We invite you  to join the Blog  party tonight. We start at 7:00 PM  on the Washington Wizards Radio Network and 106.7 FM… Check  out our list of affiliates…

Yours truly   will be ready to connect with you  as the game goes on. We start once we get set at the arena and then tip off  7:00 PM

Wizards and  Bucks ….don’t forget listen live link http://www.nba.com/allaccess/watchListen.html

Wizards Report

Listen to today’s Wizards Report with Dave Johnson for a preview of tonight’s #WizBucks game.