Washington 96 (22–52) | New Orleans 91 (35–41)
Curry's Lakers recap took an otherwise meaningless win and discussed it as a nice precursor of things to come (focus on next season instead of this one). The story ended with a simple line:
Here's hoping to seven more games like Monday's.
And frankly, tonight's match-up with the heavily depleted Wizards seemed like a perfect opportunity to build on such an unusual (but nice) win against a team like the Lakers. But then it turned out that, no, it was not meant to be.
Am I upset that the Hornets dropped this game? Nah. We're mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, so it would seem that our main goal would be to give playing time to the rookies, rest the veterans some, and see what happens. If you win, great. If not, who cares?*
*Since the Hornets will likely land between 10 and 12 in the lottery, a single win or loss at this point is negligible in terms of ping pong balls. Which is to say that shy of winning or losing the final 6 contests, we will draft within a spot or two of our current position.
Of course, don't get me wrong; I am disappointed in tonight's performance. Mike Miller made us look silly (primarily Morris Peterson... which may not be all that hard in the NBA anymore). JaVale McGee capitalized on our pitiful defensive awareness (read: Aaron Gray), taking the backdoor for something like 4 or 5 uncontested dunks. Even Andray Blatche got in on the fun by adding 23 points of his own.
So what did the Hornets do? Well, we never held the lead once. David contributed 5 turnovers in 34 minutes. We were ice-cold from deep (3 for 11). James Posey made several stupid fouls and then had the audacity to draw a foul with 15 seconds remaining when we're down 2... which would have been fine, except he didn't bother to try and shoot for an and-1 opportunity and ended up missing a free throw. Oh, and Bower inexplicably let CP play for 44 minutes.*
*This is particularly maddening since, again, a win or loss means nothing. Why trot out your recently recovered superstar/face-of-franchise for all but 4 minutes of a game if you aren't even going to try and win? (And by not try, I mean play Emeka and DX for a combined 57 minutes.)
When the whistle sounded, the Bees had surrendered a W that ended the Wizards' longest losing streak in franchise history (17). Their last win? New Jersey, back on February 28. Yikes.
So, yeah: not quite what I envisioned for this game. But if no one got hurt and everyone learned a little something, then I guess it's fine by me. Baseball season starts when exactly?
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Opponent's Take: Bullets Forever
Wizards vs Hornets boxscore