Tag Archives: Wizards

Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Washington Wizards Preview (Game 34 of 82)

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ibaka wiz

  • When: Monday, 07 January 2013 at 06:00 CST
  • Where: Verizon Center, Washington D.C.

This is literally the NBA’s best versus the NBA’s worst. When the Oklahoma City Thunder meet the Washington Wizards on Monday night, Washington will be 21.5 games behind the Thunder with 32 games already played. The Thunder come into the game having defeated the Toronto Raptors in a Sunday matinee, 104-92. Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant led 5 Thunder players in double figures with 23 and 22 points, respectively. After dropping 3 of 6, the Thunder have won 2 in a row by an average of 18 points.

In their only meeting last season, the Wizards defeated the Thunder 105-102. That was the Thunder’s only loss in a 12 game stretch during the early portion of the strike shortened season. Wizards’ point guard John Wall led the way with a near triple double of 25 points, 7 rebounds, and 8 assists. Russell Westbrook had 36 points, 5 boards, and 7 assists, while Kevin Durant had 33 points, but the Thunder could never catch up after digging themselves a hole early in the game.

The Opponent

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The Washington Wizards find themselves with the worst record in the NBA at 4-28. They score an anemic 88.9 points per game, good for last in the league, while allowing 97.2 points per game. Part of the reason for their slow start is the absence of John Wall, who has been sidelined with a knee injury the entire season. The Wizards start Garrett Temple and rookie Bradley Beal in the back court. Beal was rumored to be a target of the Thunder’s in a possible draft day deal involving then Thunder guard James Harden. After averaging 11 points per game his first month of the season, Beal has increased his scoring to 14.4 point per game in December and January. He has also nearly doubled his assists numbers in that same time frame from 1.6 to 3.4 assists per game. Three point specialist Martell Webster is the other starting wing at small forward. The Wizards are formidable inside with a trio of veteran big men in Emeka Okafor, Nene, and Kevin Seraphin. Together the trio combines for 31.6 points, 18.8 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks per game. Off the bench, the Wizards deploy some fire power in the form of guard Jordan Crawford and Cartier Martin, who can easily rattle off 15-20 points in a game. 

Probable Starters

Washington Wizards

  • PG – Garrett Temple
  • SG – Bradley Beal
  • SF – Martell Webster
  • PF – Nene
  • C – Emeka Okafor

Oklahoma City Thunder

  • PG – Russell Westbrook
  • SG – Thabo Sefolosha
  • SF – Kevin Durant
  • PF – Serge Ibaka
  • C – Kendrick Perkins

3 Keys to Victory

1) Long-term and short-term memory – The Wizards were 1-12 when the Thunder faced them last season and lost 105-102. The Wizards were 1-13 this season when they beat the Miami Heat, 105-101. Regardless of record, this is still a collection of professional players that plays in the NBA. With their record, they view the big time opponents as their playoff games.

2) Wizards inside trio (Okafor, Nene, Seraphin) vs. the Thunder’s inside trio (Perkins, Ibaka, and Nick Collison) – Though not as effective as they used to be, Emeka Okafor and Nene can still come up with double double games  if given the opportunity. Seraphin is a lot like Ibaka from 2 years ago, still raw, but polished enough to give big minutes. The Wizards are the 7th best rebounding team in the league with an average of 43.6 rebounds per game. If the Thunder big men are not on their post games, the Wizards could collect second chance boards and make a game out of this.

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3) Kevin Durant – Trevor Ariza is the only player on the Wizards that has a sliver of hope of guarding Durant, and he’ll probably be out with a strained calf. Martell Webster is too short, Chris Singleton is too slow, and Jan Vesely is too European to guard Durant one on one. Hometown Durant could be on full display tonight. The only person stopping Durant tonight is Durant…and the bench if he doesn’t get off of it in the 4th quarter.

Just A Game

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Its funny how life sometimes put things into perspective. A dear friend of mines passed away on Wednesday. Someone that I can proudly say was like a 3rd grandfather to my kids. His wife was my kids’ main caregiver before they started school. And while this gentleman was at work most of the time his wife was running the home daycare, there were those days where he was home from work and would help out with the daily chores of running a home daycare. The kids even had their own nickname for him, just like a regular grandfather. Not only that, but his daughter and my wife were best friends in junior high and high school. In addition, he was also one of my co-workers for about 2 years. Needless to say, there was a bit of history between our family and theirs.

So when the Oklahoma City Thunder lost to the lowly Washington Wizards, it didn’t quite register as large a blip as it normally would have on my radar screen. I was still disappointed, don’t get me wrong. Title contenders aren’t supposed to be losing to teams that have a great shot at obtaining the No. 1 pick in the next draft. But at the moment, in that time, a loss to the team with the league’s worst record wasn’t really that important.

Honestly, in the context of an entire season, one loss isn’t really that important if you are either an elite team or a bottom of the barrel team. Barring injuries, I don’t think we will be struggling to hold our post as a home court advantage team in the Western Conference. History is sprinkled with examples of eventual champs getting surprised by that one go-getter team that is galvanized by their home crowd into playing out of their minds and winning that one crazy game. I call it the “Loser’s Game 7” effect. Washington will only have a couple of these games this season: OKC, Miami on February 10th and April 26th, Chicago on January 30th, the Lakers on March 7th, and the Clippers on February 4th. Bad teams don’t get hyped to play other bad teams. The Milwaukee Bucks don’t have their visit to New Orleans circled on any game schedule. Bad teams love being the hunters, if only for that one game.

The Thunder just happened to fall into the lions den on the wrong night. They started off good, but you could tell from the beginning they were playing a bit too loose with the ball. You give any team enough opportunities, and they’ll eventually start to cash in on those. And that’s what the Wizards did. They eventually started to feel good about themselves and started hitting shots, contested and open. They started to look like the team their fans imagined them to be. And for that one night, everything fell into place. The questionable blocking call was called a charge. The FT’s started falling. Hell, the 3 pointers started falling. In the end, the Wiz got one of their biggest wins of the entire season.

And it still doesn’t worry me that much. We are still a young team that is prone to hiccups at times, especially against lesser competition. We still had an opportunity at the end of the game to either tie it or win it outright. I just hope this serves as a lesson to the Thunder. When you are the hunted, you are usually getting the best from each team for the full 48 minutes. That’s something that still may be new to this young Thunder team. Elite teams lose sometimes, no matter who the other team is. The difference, is that they take each loss and use it as a lesson to be learned. And that’s what I’m sure Scott Brooks is doing right now.

As for me, I still did manage to watch the game last night on DVR. In the midst of pain, basketball is my refuge. Always has been. So with that said, I bid adieu to my friend, Hector Carreras. A good father, husband, soldier, pseudo-grandfather to my kids, and human being. An avid ping pong player, I guess the angel that used to play against God wasn’t cutting it anymore. So God had to call in his replacement. Rest In Peace, dear friend.