By Sam Amico
ProBasketballNews.com
For one night, the Washington Wizards were the San Antonio Spurs.
They pressed, they trapped, they made Cleveland’s LeBron James look like a guy who had never seen a double team before. Actually, James may never have seen double teams like those the Wizards threw at him during a 108-72 hammer job in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference playoff series.
As Wizards coach Eddie Jordan confessed, “We
doubled him more tonight than in the first two
games.”
James isn’t the only one who suffered. By halftime,
the Wizards forced a whopping 15 turnovers --
turning the Cavs’ offense into a big bowl of
basketball mush.
It may have been the finest defensive performance the Wizards have ever mustered under Jordan.
“We were trying to get deflections without getting out of position,” Jordan said. “Our rotations were crisp.”
And that was just the defense.
As for the Wizards’ offense … well, you know it’s your night when 7-foot-0 center Brendan Haywood hits a driving, one-handed reverse layup in traffic. That happened in the second quarter, when the Wizards were in the process of extending a four-point first quarter lead into a 16-point laugher by halftime.
In the end, Haywood had 14 points. Unfortunately for the Cavs, that wasn’t even the most surprising stat of the night.
None other than shooting guard DeShawn Stevenson led the Wizards with 19 points, on 5-of-9 shooting from the field, no less. Keep in mind we’re talking about Stevenson here -- the same guy who had made just 14 of his previous 62 shots entering the game.
The Wizards’ second-leading scorer? Try backup guard Roger Mason (18 points), who averaged 5.0 points on a rim-rattling 20 percent from the floor in the first two games.
Meanwhile, the player of the night was clearly Wizards forward Caron Butler, who stuck himself to James like old chewing gum on the bottom of your shoe. And when was the last time a guy stripped James of the ball, then dribbled to the other end of the court to finish with a dunk? On this night, the Butler did it.
But as Butler himself indicated afterward, this was a team effort in the truest sense. Everyone contributed, and everyone seemed to enter the game with the mindset that it was payback time for a 30-point loss in Cleveland the other night.
Of course, Jordan had a little something to do with that. After taking all of the blame for the Wizards’ wretched performance in Game 2, Jordan and his staff turned up the heat at practice.
“We kind of read them the riot act the day after the game in Cleveland,” he said. “It was a risky thing to do this late in the season …”
But it needed to be done.
For all their attempts at intimidation and rough-housing in the first two games, the Wizards have been considered a big fluffy teddy bear when it comes to the postseason. That’s especially the case against the Cavs, who eliminated them each of the past two years.
So Jordan went out on a limb and challenged his mostly veteran team.
“We tore them down and built them back up,” he said.
Granted, the Wizards still trail the best-of-seven series 2-1 heading into Sunday’s Game 4 (also in Washington). But they proved they can win this series if they play with similar energy in upcoming games. It was almost as if the Wizards were one of those mid-major teams going up against North Carolina or Duke in the NCAA tournament.
They were that hungry, that passionate, that focused.
They also showed that they don’t need to employ the Bad Boy-like tactics they resorted to earlier in the series. Instead, all they need to do is play the type of fundamental, hard-nosed defense that everyone says wins championships.
The Wizards may not win a championship but at least they’ve finally awaken James and the Cavs. And that alone is a pretty big development.
