The last few days have been quite an adventure for the Washington Wizards. The Eastern Conference’s current 3-seed lost to Boston in somewhat convincing fashion on Sunday, and appeared to be well on their way towards returning the favor Monday night until the Celtics mounted a fourth quarter rally that eventually pushed the game into double-overtime. The Wizards still managed to win, 133-132, but perhaps the fatigue of that game lingered into Wednesday’s affair against the Orlando Magic — another sub-.500 team in the East.
The Wizards started the game strong, but found themselves down 89-84 late in the fourth quarter. In years past, John Wall & Co. may have folded under the pressure of what should have been a winnable game. But these ain’t your Daddy’s Wizards. The did what contenders (at least, contenders for the conference crown) ought to do: find a way to win. It helped that Orlando is still figuring things out on their end, including knowing when to shoot the ball with only a handful of seconds left in a tie game. Unfortunately, Victor Oladipo made a tremendous error in judgement in releasing a potential go-ahead bucket with a few too many ticks left on the game clock.
Oladipo missed and the Wizards called timeout with 0.8 seconds remaining. That’s all the Wizards needed for Andre Miller to toss a perfect lob to Bradley Beal, who casually tossed in a reverse layup as time expired.
[NBA]
