Guess Who's Back?

Yup.

Second, ouch. Losing a game like that sucks.

Mr. "not playin tonight" played last night. I'm happy he did. But here's the thing. See, I probably should have known better, but I believed him. As such, I proceeded to skip the game live and watch it on DVR later. But then I ended up at a bar watching the Mavs/Warriors game. Well, you know that they couldn't let that bit of news just go unmentioned during that broadcast. Sure, I probably shouldn't have been watching that game if my goal was to remain clueless about the Wizards until later. I was a little disappointed, cause I was really looking forward to watching him re-enter the game live. I was gonna bust out the jersey and everything. Gil man, that was a little un-cool, but it's ok, cause you hit your first three shots out the gate, so we're cool.

I did watch some of the game later, but since I had already seen replays of the finish, it made it a little tough to sit through the whole thing. I watched Gil's entrance, most of the 2nd quarter and the last few minutes of the 4th. Check out the GameFlow from PopcornMachine, my man Gil was a -8 for the night. That was the largest negative value last night. Now, I'm not saying that it's not understandable, but it is something to take notice of. The team was playing well without him, and it's important that he doesn't mess up the flow. Also on the GameFlow you'll see that the Wizards dominated the whole game, except for the very end, which makes this loss all the more frustrating. That brings me to my next point...

The Wizards need the win vs Miami. We simply cannot afford to fall any farther in the standings. Sure, it's a three-way tie and we own the series on Toronto, but Philly owns the series on us and need to be in a better position before we actually play them. At least, I think so.

Hat tip to BulletsForever, who called it on Gil's ploy last night.

One more thing I am not going to talk about (yet) because it would be all speculation are potential injuries to Stevenson and Jamison. As of midnight on the West Coast, this was BF's latest, via Ivan Carter.

Random Ramblings - March 31

• If you haven't heard, Gil said last night that he'd take a pay cut in order to allow the Wizards to re-sign Jamison. Gilbertology has the quotes. Adande over at ESPN goes on to quote an anonymous source (Ernie G. anybody???) stating that the Wizards are responsible for taking care of ALL their franchise players and goes on to say the organization is authorized to go within $1 of the luxury tax threshold. ONE DOLLAR?!?!?! You cannot run an NBA team like a 99 cent store Abe. I understand you do not want to go over the limit, but you think maybe you can look at the situation before you go making rules like that. The least you could do is give the typical, "We'll see where we're at at the end of the season."
• In a bit of DC related new, Pres. Bush gets booed throwing out the first pitch at the new Nationals stadium.
• Apparently, the Wizards do not have any "ankle-busters". Shame. Still fun to watch.
• Save Stevenson's beard! Personally, Deshawn, I say bust out some Rec Specs.

• CelticsBlog has some nice things to say about the Wizards and gives 5 reasonably good reasons (reasonably good reasons....yeah...that sounds right) why you should watch the Eastern conference playoff race.
• My new favorite non-basketball related blog: Stuff White People Like. Here's a good one on San Francisco. If you're bored at work (you are, or you wouldn't be reading this) or you've completed your task of finding a vaccine for malaria (or AIDS, or whatever), I highly suggest wasting...AHEM...spending some quality time on that blog.
• Doc Rivers sits next to Pat Riley at the G'town/Davidson game and humanity spirals towards the apocalypse. Not really. (Hockey assist to TrueHoop).
• I watched, for the first time since I've been here, a home Laker broadcast. I noticed a couple of things. First, their dancers are hot. That's expected. Second, the Phil Jackson interview before the game, which the announcers dubbed "Philosophy 101" (lame name, couldn't they come up with something better...like "Zen-Ball-Talk" or "Jackson on Jackson"?) was actually not the worst pre-game interview I've seen. Phil actually answered questions with direct responses and didn't seem TOO upset about being interviewed before the game. By the way, that name, "Phil Jackson." Look at it for a second. If you met a Phil Jackson in grade school, wouldn't you picture him being the lame ass fat kid eating a cupcake in the corner of the cafeteria? I would.

• Last but not least, Jamison is STILL #2 in the league in adjusted +/- according to BasketballValue.com. Sure, he's doing more awesome because Gil is out (thank you 9th grade English). But really, isn't it EASIER to be better when Gil is in (more open looks, etc)? So really, Jamison has dominated as the primary threat. Throw Butler and an un-injured Hibachi to the mix and I'd say you have a championship caliber team. Yeah. I said it.