Wizards Take a 1-0 Series Lead

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DC Rising

 

 

 

Randy Wittman joins Pat Riley and Mike Dunleavy, no not the Chicago Bull his father, to be the only three coaches to win their first four playoff road games. Yes Randy Wittman as in the same Randy Wittman that was the interim head coach of the Wizards after Flip Saunders was fired after a 2-15 start to the 2011-2012 season. Yes the same Randy Wittman who the Washington Post asked for to be fired before this year’s All-star break. He then went onto lead the Wizards to 19-11 after the break and then an easy first round series win over the bulls and now coaching the Wizards to a 1-0 series lead against the 1st seeded Indiana Pacers.

Starting with the combination of John Wall and Trevor Ariza to give them a 13 point lead at the half and then closing it out with a combination Bradley Beal and Drew Gooden that gave the Wizards a 102-96 win. While the Wizards offense was timely and operated in their usual spurts, it was all about the Wizards defense and the lack of the Indiana Pacers offense. With Trevor Ariza shutting down Paul George for the whole game and which resulted in him shooting 4 for 17 from the field and then making life even worse for the former Georgetown Hoya, Roy Hibbert as he started the game and finish it with 18 minutes, 0 points, 0 rebounds, 5 fouls and a plus/minus of -17.

When you have Trevor Ariza shoot 6 for 6 from three along with scoring 22 points you would think he would be the most valuable player that led the Wizards to this win but that honor would go to Drew Gooden. Yes, the Drew Gooden that was signed to two ten day contracts to end the season for the Wizards but Randy Wittman knew what he was doing when played Gooden 18 minutes in the second round of the NBA playoffs. Gooden would go onto put up 12 points and 13 rebounds off the bench giving Nene some rest when he got into early foul trouble.

When you have a team that is capable of winning a playoff game when their max contract player, John Wall, only scores 13 points you know you have something special. With the help of Bradley Beal scoring 25 points including 12 points in the fourth quarter the Wizards closed out the Pacers.

The big man of the Wizards absolutely bullied the Pacers down low as they would have a 17-6 edge in offensive rebounding which would then result in them having a 19-5 edge in second chance points. While yes this was a great start to this second round series in securing the 1-0 lead if the Wizards want to continue to make waves in the playoffs this year they will need the Randy Wittman lead team to hit their free throws as they finished the game shooting 22-31 from the line that allowed the Pacers to crawl back and almost threaten to take the lead.

But all downsides aside, the few that were there, Congratulations to Randy Wittman and the Washington Wizards as they are now 11 wins away from a NBA championship. DC Rising.

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Brian Hradsky

The owner of MSB, I created this website while in college and it has never died.

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