What I missed

Well, for starters, I missed the overtime game against Charlotte on Wednesday night, due to travel. I checked the score throughout, and I could have guessed that the team was suffering a bit of mental anguish after finding out Gil is out for 3 months. Reading the follow-up pretty much confirms this (and that Butler had a huge night). But we won, and that's what counts.

Since the NBA TV was not destined to be for me right now, I also missed the Warriors and Grizzlies games, both of which we lost. I didn't get a chance to follow those games, so my observations come purely from the boxscore and other blogs.

Against the Warriors I can see that both sides were shooting the lights out, with Caron earning his first career-triple double (that's two big games in a row, for those keeping score at home). BD got one as well, first time that's happened since like, the Ice Ages. Anyway, very happy to see Caron stepping up his game to another level, but we couldn't pull it out. From Bullets Forever, it seems that we just broke down at the end. There's a shocker. The Wizards D couldn't contain a hot shooting Warriors, and when Gil time comes along and there is no Gil, someone (in this case Caron) has to take bad shots. I'm not too worried, you win some, you lose some, but it is a little disconcerting that we could have won with a few defensive stops. Haywood wasn't much help on the inside, coming off a bad ankle and all. He went 3-8 and pulled down 4 rebounds. Not exactly the Beast.

Against the Gizz, and the Juan and the Pau, the Wiz couldn't pull out a win. The Man with a Plan, Antawn Jamison went off for 41 points (boxscore), but that wasn't enough to overcome the Grizz. We did a little better on the boards and the assist numbers were up from the previous game, but some poor free throw shooting and once again, a lack of D, the Wizards left Memphis feelin the blues. Apparently, the Wizards hit a bit of a dry spell from the left side of the floor. Interesting.

It doesn't get any easier from here with games against the Mavs tonight and Spurs on Wednesday to wrap up the West road trip. I am not sure we can beat these elite teams without the Agent, but if we can play some defense and pass the ball around, we can at least stay competitive so that when we visit Philly on Friday, we'll have the momentum to take a W on the way to a week and a half long home stand. Big games from Haywood or AD (or both) could push us to upset one of these behemoths, but don't count on it. Les Bullez says it best, "this season will be a roller coaster."