Playoff Villains

I first bought Washington Wizards season tickets in the year 2000. I've been there for this team every year since. In 2005, the franchise rewarded me as a season ticket holder by making the playoffs for the first time this century. That would be the start of a four year run in the postseason that featured just one series win, the very first one played vs. Chicago in 2005.

Once Gilbert Arenas, Larry Hughes and Antawn Jamison got by the Bulls that first year, we ended up in a series with the number one seeded Miami Heat. Despite the sometimes close scores, it was not much of a series and it lasted just four games. The Wizards despite all their good play that year were no match for Shaquille O'Neal, Dwayne Wade (42 points in the series clincher) and company. It was a domination. After a 4-0 nothing sweep during the regular season, the Heat made it 8 losses in a row in a single season for the Wiz. It was humiliating. And just like that Shaq became my first Wizards playoff villain.

For the next three years, I forgot all about Shaq even while he and the Miami Heat won a Championship the very next year. For the next three years, the playoffs and hating people on the other team were all about LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. The 4-5 matchup in 2006? Cleveland-Washington. 2-7 the next year? Cleveland-Washington. 4-5 the year after that? Cleveland-Washington again. 4-2. 4-0. 4-2. Three first round playoff losses to the Cavs back to back to back.

So let's be honest. LeBron was generally speaking really good at basketball those three years and that can totally make a playoff villain. But that wasn't it with LeBron. It was the whining, crying, babyish, smug way he won. It was whispering in Gilbert Arenas' ear before a free throw. It was protesting every call. It was telling referee Danny Crawford that Brendan Haywood was trying to hurt him (Haywood was ejected). It was taking Darius Songaila's hand and hitting his own face and then flopping mercilessly (Songaila was suspended). It was all the nonsense that James used to get his way over and over and over again. As if playing the games on an even playing field wasn't enough. 

It was those three years that will make me never root for this guy. I'd rather have JaVale McGee win a title before I see LeBron win another. It was those three years that put LeBron in a category by himself as the ultimate playoff villain. And then it was over. No more Wizards playoffs for six years.

Nice flop, LeBron! Got Songaila suspended for game six though.

2014. New team. No more Arenas-Butler-Jamison big three. Enter John Wall, Nenê, Trevor Ariza, Marcin Gortat and Bradley Beal. Two rounds and out. Beat Chicago; lost to Indiana. The next year? Ariza out, Paul Pierce in. Two rounds and out again. Swept Toronto and bowed out to Atlanta. Those two playoff runs were great and when they were over Wizards fans were buoyed by the fact that if it wasn't for John Wall's broken wrist, there may have been an Eastern Conference Finals berth in there.

But one thing they didn't produce for me were any playoff villains. Jimmy Butler maybe due to his tete-a-tete with Nenê that got our big man suspended or Al Horford for his game winner in game five of the Atlanta series. But it's difficult to despise teams you beat handily like Toronto in 2015 and the Bulls the year before and honestly the players on both the Pacers in '14 and the Hawks the year after were just difficult to dislike those years. No villains there for me.

So now it's 2017 and the Wizards are back again in the second round of the playoffs and locked in a battle with the Boston Celtics after taking care of the Atlanta Hawks in six. And holy crap there are so many guys on these opponents to thoroughly loathe it's amazing. There are villains all over these teams. I knew I'd feel this way about the Celtics but honestly I had no idea that I cared enough about anyone on the Atlanta Hawks to dislike them even slightly. I guess it's the competition that bring this stuff out.

On the Hawks side of things, let's start with Dennis Schröder and Kent Bazemore. Both are decent players but they both clearly both think they are way better than they actually are. The whooping and celebrating by Bazemore when things are going well drives me crazy and Schröder even suggesting he's in the same league (metaphorically speaking that is) as John Wall makes me laugh. Bazemore also gets no love from me for the push in the back on Bradley Beal in game six after Beal made a layup. I'm really not sure Beal fell due to the push but the very act of pushing a defenseless player to gain no competitive advantage when he's in a dangerous and vulnerable position is dirty. That could have turned out really badly.

But the guy on the Hawks who I loved to see sent home for the summer was their so-called All-Star power forward Paul Millsap. Since he got his game handed to him in game one (19 points but just 2 rebounds) by Markieff Morris on Easter Sunday, Millsap had a good series, averaging 24 points and 11 boards over games two through five and dropping 31 and 10 in the Wizards game six clincher. He for sure some damage to the Wizards but that's not why I was glad to see his season over. It's the whining, crying and flopping he did on and off the court that's got me upset. This dude's supposed to be an All-Star and one sub-par game against Kieff and he's complaining like the second coming of 2009 LeBron James. Good riddance.

If the Hawks got my blood boiling a little, there's no comparison to how I'm feeling about the Boston Celtics right now. I expected this. I mean there have been regular season in-game and post-game run-ins with Jae Crowder and Marcus Smart the last two years, two role players who use their physicality to gain an upper hand every now and again against opponents. This year featured Crowder poking John Wall in the nose after a game in Boston and Boston police standing between the locker rooms minutes later. The Wizards followed that up with the funeral game, one of the simultaneously silliest, immature and awesome stunts any Wizards team has pulled ever. It helped that the game was a Wizards blowout.

In this series Crowder and Smart have been doing their usual things but honestly other than Smart undercutting Bojan Bogdanovich on a three point attempt in game one and two consecutive flops for fouls from the same guy against John Wall in game two, those two have been pretty quiet. By the way, why don't superstar calls apply to John Wall? How is he getting whistled for two questionable calls back to back? And does the NBA still fine for flopping? It seems like that was either an official short term initiative or they've just gotten tired of fining. 

But there is no shortage of playoff villains on the Celtics side of things. Al Horford made sure his foot was well-placed under Markieff Morris to knock Kieff out of game one before Smart tried it with Bogey later in the same game. But the two guys who are going to have me yelling the loudest tomorrow afternoon are Isaiah Thomas and Kelly Olynyk.

So let's face it, Thomas is good. On offense. I don't understand how this dude hits half the stuff he hits around the basket. The only thing I can think is that his release comes from a spot vertically that is so much different than any other player in the NBA that no defender can get the right angle to defend him properly. But he's also taking his shots when he can under the protection of the refs and the rules I guess. The jumping backwards into Kelly Oubre bloodying Kelly's mouth in game two minutes after hitting Otto Porter in the nose with his head got zero fouls. And the constant yapping from a guy who can't D up makes me nuts too.

But let's also face it, Kelly Olynyk is just plain dirty. And I guess he's smart enough to get away with it most times. Olynyk is going to draw a lot of booing and I'm sure some things way less civil than booing tomorrow evening after his shoulder to the neck screen on Kelly Oubre made our Kelly lose it and get suspended for bumrushing and knocking down Olynyk in game three. But that's not the first time Olynyk has done something like that. He had a raised forearm to the neck screen on Oubre about two minutes earlier in Thursday's game and you can ask Kevin Love about his broken arm courtesy of Olynyk a couple of years ago. I have to believe Verizon Center's crowd will be doing everything they can to make this guy feel insecure tomorrow.

In the NBA, rivalries are made in the playoffs. Forget divisions and the regular season; there is nothing like a playoff series to solidify some hate between two teams. The only thing that makes these rivalries more heated is throwing a couple of guys out on the other team that you just plain love to hate, some villains that you want to see get what's coming to them on every play if possible. We got that in spades this year in Schröder, Bazemore, Millsap, Crowder, Smart, Horford, Thomas and Olynyk, although the kind of nastiness Olynyk is known for has no place in this game.

Game four is tomorrow. Let's tie this thing up, Wizards, then go to Boston and take game five.

Who To Boo

About a decade ago, Washington Wizards fans were pioneers. Before Boston fans, Detroit fans or any other team's fans booed LeBron James, me and my fellow home team fans at Verizon Center booed LeBron mercilessly every time he touched the ball. Without exception. And what did this get us? A 12-7 regular season home record against LeBron's teams over the last ten years. Yes, I know LeBron didn't play in all those games and the playoff record was just 1-4 over that span but the point is the crowd was into it in a serious way. Wizards fans were worked up into a frenzy for those games and the relentless booing paid off big time.

Now lately I've noticed a disturbing trend. Last year I booed LeBron every time he touched the ball in the one game he participated in at VC but the most of the folks sitting around me remained quiet. What the heck is going on here? Do we care anymore about booing the opponents? The answer there of course is maybe not. John Wall got booed at the free throw line during the Los Angeles Lakers' annual trip to Verizon Center last year and hometown former hero Kevin Durant disparaged Washington's fans for their lack of support for the home team before blowing the Wizards off completely in the offseason.

Well I've had enough and so should every self-respecting Wizards fan (but especially the season ticket holders) out there. We need to show up and we need to be loud. I'm not talking piped-in-crowd-noise-in-Miami-or-Boston-loud. I mean LOUD!!!!! Like DeShawn-Stevenson-Soulja-Boy loud. And when I say show up, I mean SHOW UP. I mean don't blow off Tuesday games against Milwaukee because you've had a tough day at work and don't sell your Warriors tickets because you can make a quick buck. Get your butts in some seats and yell.

So here's my proposal: let's pick one guy on the opposing team for the big games (meaning those that are likely to have "fans" of the other team show up) and boo him every time he touches the ball. All of us. Together. Whether the Wizards are ahead or behind. Pour all your frustrations, love of the Wizards or whatever else you need to into making as much noise as possible when that one player touches the ball for whatever amount of time. Come on, Wizards fans. I know you can do this. After all, by concentrating on one villain, this is the only way we seem to have made a bunch of noise in the past.

Our home opener is one week from tomorrow night. In the interest of getting a coordinated effort going here, below are my proposed booees for the big games this season. We have to start out hot this year and we have to throw all our support behind this team from the home opener. Please. When the guys listed below touch the ball, boo like your lives depend on it. And yes, I thought about listing a target booee for the home opener against the Toronto Raptors but I figured (a) nobody really cares that much about any of the Raps' players to boo heartily (plus the last time we played really important basketball against Toronto it was a playoff sweep) and (b) if our crowd can't make a little noise for the opener, we are in real trouble crowd-wise.

Friday, November 4 / Wednesday March 22: Atlanta Hawks (Home Games 2 & 38)

Who: Dwight Howard

Is there any more fun guy to boo than Dwight Howard? Not for my money, there isn't. Dwight's a guy who behaves in a way to make absolutely nobody like him and seems to get upset any time anyone doesn't love him. He's a complicated guy for sure. And an easy target for some booing. And let's face it, there's nobody else on the Hawks even remotely unlikeable now that playoff Wizard killer Al Horford has bolted Atlanta. We'll get to Horford. Quickly. Let's let Dwight know that we don't like him in Washington. Let's hurt his feelings enough that he going to devolve into a passive player on the offensive end and an even worse free throw shooter than he is usually.

Monday, November 7: Houston Rockets (Home Game 3)

Who: James Harden

There's something really offensive about Harden's game to me. Yes, he can fill it up like almost every game but his absolute refusal to play any sort of defense (and this is not a hyperbole, he literally just refuses to pay any sort of attention) and his incessant flopping drive me absolutely crazy. The fact that Harden actually got somewhat offended by his not winning the 2014-15 NBA MVP award is amazing to me. So of course, I love to boo James Harden because yes, he's good at some parts of the game but he sees that part of his game as his only responsibility to the game and his teammates. There should be some trash talking to go with this one from folks sitting closer to the court than I do. Need to get on Harden for the embarrassment that he is on the defensive end.

Wednesday, November 9 / Tuesday, January 24: Boston Celtics (Home Games 4 &  25)

Who: Al Horford

Why do we dis-like Al Horford, a dude that has been singularly unremarkable from an opponent fan hating perspective his entire career? Well quite simply because he told the world (just like Kevin Durant and don't worry we'll get to Mr. DC very soon) that Wizards fans, the people sitting in the stands at Verizon Center, suck. 

Now if that's not an affront enough to Wizards fans sitting in Verizon Center every game, I don't know what is. This is bulletin board material, folks. The Celtics (yes, Jae Crowder I'm looking at you) think they own the Wizards because they swept us last year. Let's prove that wrong this year, Wizards fans. Yes, I get that the Cs seemingly put as many fans in seats at VC as the Wizards do but come on, we know that's not true. Get upset a bit here folks. Let's make Al Horford feel hated like he never has before. Put two hands tougher and booooooo!!!!!

Friday, November 11 / Monday, February 6: Cleveland Cavaliers (Home Games 5 & 29)

Who: LeBron James

If you are a Wizards fan and don't know why you need to boo LeBron James when he's in Verizon Center, then you are not a Wizards fan. Enough said here. Let's move on.

Monday, November 28: Sacramento Kings (Home Game 10)

DeMarcus Cousins

I know what you are thinking here. Why should I as a Wizards season ticket holder be concerned about booing a team that is continually near the bottom of their conference and is arguably the most dysfunctional team in the entire league? Well quite honestly because we need every win we can get and on a list of guys most likely to get a technical foul, DeMarcus Cousins is about number one on that list. So why not try to goad him into one or two, right? I mean the booing can't hurt, which I think is sort of a point of this entire post.

Now if you really need a legit reason to hate DMC in this game, he got into it in the preseason with Kelly Oubre, Jr. when the two swapped an elbow exchange (not caught on film apparently). Just boo when Cousins touches the ball, would you?

Sunday, December 18: Los Angeles Clippers (Home Game #16)

Who: Blake Griffin

If Dwight Howard is the most fun guy to boo in the NBA, Blake Griffin might be the second. Both have a complex of sorts but whereas Dwight can't stand being not liked, Blake seems to object to everyone thinking he's a flopper and a crybaby. And let's make no mistake about it: he is for sure. He's whiny and petty and insistent on casting himself as a victim. And if you needed any other reason, let's not forget the 2011 Slam Dunk Contest. It's rare that I ever claim JaVale McGee is in the right but there's no way Blake beat Big Daddy Wookie in that dunk contest. Do this one for JaVale if you need that motivation.

Tuesday, January 10 / Friday, March 17: Chicago Bulls (Home Games 21 & 37)

Jimmy Butler

If there's a guy on this list that's about as uncontroversial as it gets, it's Al Horford. After that comes Jimmy Butler. I mean what's not to like about this guy's story? The absolute last first round pick in his draft class, a guy who made his reputation in the NBA on hawking defense who's now blossomed through hard work and dedication to be the two-way star on one of the most popular teams in the NBA? Well, because of the 2014 playoffs, I don't like Jimmy Butler. 

Yes, there may be other villains on the Bulls' roster worth jeering like Dwayne Wade (remember the Heat sweep of the Wizards in the second round in 2004?) and Rajon Rondo (the James Harden of assists), Jimmy Butler's my guy for this post. And if you don't remember, it was Butler who got off scott free while Nenê drew a one game suspension in the '14 playoffs. Didn't matter. We won that game anyway while Ted Leonsis led the chant of "Free Nenê!" in his number 42 jersey from the owners' seats. It's time to boo Butler on January 10 and March 17 (when I am sure Chicago will be sporting those obnoxious St. Patrick's Day unis).

Monday, February 13: Oklahoma City Thunder (Home Game 31)

Russell Westbrook

So I realize the last five or so years against the Thunder have been pretty good at Verizon Center. I mean who can forget Bradley Beal sinking that last second or so bucket against Oklahoma City in his rookie year? But the last couple of years? We've lost to the Thunder in Washington, including last year in embarrassing fashion. I mean we really stood no chance last year because Russell Westbrook bullied his way into a victory via 22 points (and a +23 overall) in just 27 minutes. Let's stop this nonsense this year and boo Westbrook into submission, please.

Tuesday, February 28: Golden State Warriors (Home Game 33)

Kevin Durant

First of all, let go of the image above. Like forever. It's photoshopped after all anyway.

This whole fan support controversy, if you can call it that, might have started with Kevin Durant. That's right. Tired of getting cheered in his hometown (God forbid), KD took a swing at the Verizon Center faithful before his trip here last season, calling us fans "disrespectful" for cheering him and saying "I wouldn't like it if I was on that team." Notwithstanding the fact that I and a whole bunch of other Wizards fans have NEVER rooted for an opponent in Verizon Center (the polite applause for former Wizards doesn't count), we did KD proud when he visited Washington last November and booed him off the court.

Now we have to do the same when he comes here with his new super team the Golden State Warriors. And I mean like really loud, guys. I thought Verizon Center made a good amount of noise when both eh Thunder and the Dubs came to town last year in support of the Wizards. Let's make our voices really heard this year by booing Kevin Durant mercilessly whenever he touches the ball. Let's make him feel respected as an opponent. And look, for those of you who plan on showing up to that game and rooting for the Warriors because somehow you've always been a Golden State fan or you "went to school with Steph" (I'm talking to the two dudes in front of us last year who happened to matriculate at Davidson while Curry was in school there) you didn't care about that team before a couple of years ago. So drop it. 

There are 13 games listed in this post. That's less than a third of the total home games this year. If we are serious about really having a home court advantage for our team, we have to do something this year other than let the one quarter of the arena's worth of Celtics or Cavaliers fans drown us out. If booing one person gets us there, I'm all for it. Let's show every one of the guys listed in this post what it means to visit Verizon Center and take on the Wizards. Maybe the next thing someone like Kevin Durant will say about our home crowd will be something positive. It's up to us, Wizards fans.

Merry Wizards-less Christmas!

When the NBA schedule was released this past August, it seemed like an affront to human decency that the Washington Wizards weren't granted a Christmas Day game. After all, the team got a spot on December 25 last year and is coming off two consecutive seasons in the second round of the NBA playoffs, one of only two such teams (along with the Los Angeles Clippers, of all teams) to make it past the first round each of the last two years. Surely this was a team on the rise and the NBA featuring the team on a national holiday would boost support among fans not already committed to the team (read: fair weather fans). Guess not!

To make matters worse for the Wizards faithful, three teams that didn't even make it to the postseason last year (the Miami Heat, the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Los Angeles Lakers) will appear on television tomorrow. What the heck is going on over at the NBA's front office up there in New York. Why the total disrespect for the Wizards? I get that the Thunder and Heat expect to return to postseason play this year with the return of injured players from last year (Chris Bosh for Miami and Kevin Durant for OKC), but the LAKERS?!?!?! This year's incarnation of the Lakers may actually end up doing worse than last year's historically bad Lakers team. The whole thing seemed like an outrage.

Well, as it turns out, two months into the regular season Wizards fans don't really have that much to be upset about. At least not in terms of not playing on Christmas, anyway. The league is not showing disrespect to the Wizards because I'm not sure they've shown they deserve any respect this year. Instead of the ascendancy of the Wiz to the top of the Southeast Division and one of the top spots in the Eastern Conference, pretty much the exact opposite has happened. The Wiz are mired in last place in the division (Miami, Atlanta, Charlotte and Orlando are battling it out for the top spot) and waaaaay down in the Conference behind a series of injuries, lackadaisical play and an abrupt backpedal on their commitment to defense. They aren't even in the playoff picture right now. It's a little bit of a disaster.

Now, lest you think I'm giving the league some credit for being right about the Wizards not being all that good through the season's first 30 games or so, think again. This is really all an accident. Sure the league put the Lakers on TV tomorrow because of Kobe Bryant and not how good they expected the team he's on to be, but I'm sure they expected the Houston Rockets to build on their Western Conference Finals appearance last season and tear up the league to start the 2015-2016 season. I'm also confident they wanted to feature a New Orleans Pelicans team on the rise fresh off their first postseason appearance as a re-named franchise behind future best player in the league Anthony Davis. Wrong on both counts. The Pels are the second worst team in the West (with a worse record even than the underperforming Wizards) and the Rockets launch this season didn't go as planned for the team or already departed head coach Kevin McHale. This stuff's all a crap shoot. 

I'm still annoyed about the Wizards not playing today, but I'm laughing at the league about the Rockets, Pelicans and of course the Lakers. I won't be glued to the screen tomorrow. I'll be able to help my mom make Christmas dinner and I won't be forced to look at those ugly ugly Christmas Day unis the league concocted this year. Although I'm still confused as to why there's a Wizards one (below) even though we aren't playing. This league will make anything as long as it stands a chance of selling and making a couple of bucks, I guess.

But I will be thankful that in an ironic twist, the league is giving LeBron James what he asked for two seasons ago: the Miami Heat playing at home on Christmas. Yep, a couple of years ago, LeBron complained about the Heat having to play on the road on December 25. It was LeBron's fourth (and as it turned out final) year in Miami and he'd played three of the four seasons there on the road on Christmas Day and he didn't feel that was right for a team that had made it to the NBA Finals the previous three years. 

So last year, the league made sure the Heat stayed home for the holidays. To make it even better, they were even so good as to make sure LeBron was in Miami when they sent his Cavaliers team down there that day. And in the continued spirit of giving, the NBA has let the Heat stay in south Florida this year for what has become an annual holiday game for that team. And LeBron, well he's on the road again. After all, who wants to be in Cleveland on Christmas. Be careful what you wish for. The Miami players are thanking you, I'm sure.

Merry Christmas, Wizards fans. The new year better bring better things for this team. Brooklyn up next on Boxing Day. Back home at VC for the Clips on Monday.

Not One, Not Two, Not Three, Not Four...

I know this is hating. I don't care.

The 2013-2014 NBA season is over. Last night the San Antonio Spurs clinched their fifth title in franchise history by defeating the Miami Heat at home in game five for a 4-1 series win. The Spurs are still the only former ABA franchise to win an NBA title and their victory ends the two year title run of the Heat in spectacularly dominant fashion. The Spurs victory not only returns the Larry O'Brien Trophy to San Antonio for the first time in nine years, it also marks the first time since 2010 that no former Washington Wizard won an NBA Championship. The past three years have seen former Wizards Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood, Juwan Howard, Rashard Lewis, Mike Miller and DeShawn Stevenson capture titles post-Wizards.

Within 30 minutes of arriving at work this morning, I was congratulated by two people on the Spurs' victory. These were not passing comments. The first thing said to me by these two people was something along the lines of "Congratulations on the win last night." Now I have never been, am not now and likely will never be a San Antonio Spurs fan. But as a die-hard Wizards fan who suffered through back to back to back playoff exits at the hands of LeBron James when he played for the Cleveland Cavaliers, I guess I am known around my workplace as a guy with an axe to grind about King James. What can I say, I guess I wear my heart on my sleeve when it comes to my team (as if writing my own blog wasn't proof enough).

I've written this before but it's not losing to the Cavs all those years ago that gets me riled up; it's the way they did it with LeBron. Instead of a humble, we haven't accomplished anything approach that the Spurs take year after year, there was whining, crying and complaining by LeBron in each of those three series. From engineering the ejections of Brendan Haywood and Darius Songaila by crying to the officials or the commissioner to non-called but later assessed flagrant 2 fouls on Andray Blatche to whispering in Gilbert Arenas' ear when he was about to shoot all important end of game free throws (now an automatic technical), LeBron never beat us with class. And I guess that's why I got some dap this morning when I started my workday.

I don't know what it is about LeBron that gets to me. Despite all the PR errors he's made over the years, there's always something with this guy and this year's finals were no exception. It's like he's always looking for some sort of excuse and it started in game one with the leg cramps. The AT&T Center that night had inoperable air conditioning and temperatures on the court were 90 degrees or above. There's no doubt that the players were feeling it more and more as the game went on. Tiago Splitter looked like he was about having a heart attack his face was so red. The Spurs won game one handily but LeBron wasn't on the court to see it. Of all the players in the building, only he cramped up to a degree that forced him to sit out the end of the game. There's no shame in sitting out the end of a game one blowout. Sit down, regroup and come back stronger in game two, which the Heat did. But don't make up some excuse for not re-entering the game. Please!

Game two in San Antonio was taken by the Heat and the series went to Miami tied up at one game each. But home court advantage was not kind to the Heat. Two games, two blowouts. Their D looked awful and Dwayne Wade in particular, all of 32 years old, looked way past his prime. There was no competition offered by the Heat in these two games and so no excuse was really offered for the losses. They were so completely destroyed by the Spurs that LeBron and Wade didn't even make fun of any of the Spurs' players like they did in 2011 with Dirk Nowitzski.

But before game five, it seemed like the swagger was back. LeBron talked about the fact that his team had "championship DNA" and that they play best when their backs are against the wall. I have news for you, LeBron: players that have lost three of five NBA Finals cannot use "championship DNA" as an inspiration. You may have two more championships than a lot of other players, but you don't have an exclusive license on them. If anyone has that sort of DNA, I think it should be the Spurs. You really only won two titles because you colluded with two fellow All-Stars to buck the system and tip the competitive balance in your favor. Ever since that night in Miami almost four years ago when the Heat held a party to introduce the signings of you, Chris Bosh and Wade, your backs have never been against the wall. You stacked the deck in your favor. You should really have won all four years. But you didn't.

By the middle of the fourth quarter of game five, it appeared the Heat had been beaten back almost completely. The Spurs held an almost 20 point lead and it seemed that it wouldn't be too much longer before the Heat would cry uncle and fold. But the game wasn't over. It is technically possible to come back from that lead. I've seen plenty of leads blown by the home team at Verizon Center over the last 14 years in the fourth quarter. But it seemed like LeBron wasn't interested; he sat out the last six minutes. I don't get it. There's no regrouping and fighting in game six. The season's over if you don't play. I guess he wasn't all that interested. Winners like LeBron I guess don't like losing. If he's not on the court, I guess he can claim he could have prevented the loss if only...

LeBron was the first Miami Heat player to reach the locker room last night. I'm not surprised. At least he learned to shake hands after the game since he refused to do so against the Orlando Magic in 2009. Now the question is, what do the Heat do next? There is speculation that LeBron, Wade and Bosh will all opt out of their contracts and restructure their deals to try to conspire again to tip the competitive balance in their favor even more next year by recruiting Carmelo Anthony. There is also speculation that LeBron will move on to another team with a better chance of winning. For my part, I don't much care what he does. I believe there is value in staying someplace and making it better. I've been at my job almost 15 years now through thick and some pretty thin years. It would have been much easier to bail and start over somewhere easier. But I'm proud of what I've accomplished by staying. I don't imagine LeBron will ever feel that way.

No matter where he lands next year, I'll be rooting against LeBron (please, Wizards, don't let LeBron decide to sign with us). If he leaves Miami, he leaves with unfulfilled promises. While I can't imagine the Heat fans that actually stick with the team care much since he already delivered two titles, LeBron actually promised them at least eight. Doesn't look like that's coming true any time soon. If he leaves, it never will. He even said it would be easy. Guess not. 

It's 32-0 now!

Beating LeBron

Randy Wittman: "That was a complete game for us, start to finish. I'll be able to sleep tonight."

This past Tuesday, the Miami Heat came to town to take on the Wizards in what looked like a laugher: the reigning NBA Champions against unquestionably the worst team in the league. The Heat came in sporting a Southeast Division leading 12-3 record and the Wizards were still struggling to find their second win of the season. Even worse for Wizards fans, when you looked at the upcoming schedule, you could maybe, and I stress maybe here, circle the December 11 game at New Orleans as a game which we had a shot at. The Wizards were home underdogs to the tune of 10.5 points Tuesday night; even with that line, I'm not sure too many would have put some money out there on us.

However, what emerged was the Wizards best effort of the season, a game in which we outshone Miami in almost every statistical category and came away with a four point victory. The fourth quarter was rough as the Heat just failed on a comeback attempt that  featured two missed three point shot attempts in the last couple of minutes by the league's supposed best player, LeBron James himself. It's games like this that make it worthwhile to buy season tickets.

Over my 12 plus years as a Wizards season ticket holder, my team hasn't had a lot of statement victories against the Heat. In fact, I think it's fair to say that we have had none. We've pretty much been dominated by Miami over that period of time. Since the 2000-2001 season, the Wizards are 14-37 against the Heat, a run which included a paltry eight home wins. We were swept six of the last 12 years, including three consecutive season sweeps from the 2003-2004 season to the 2005-2006 season. It got so bad in 2004-2005 that we actually got swept twice by the Heat: going 0-4 in the regular season and 0-4 again in the second round of the playoffs.

But if there's one team the Wizards have been able to beat regularly (at least at home), it's teams with three-time league MVP LeBron James on them. And beating those teams, whether it be the Cleveland Cavaliers or his current team, the Heat, is so special because LeBron has been such a villain over the years in Washington. The latest win continued that tradition and allowed us fans to feel for a moment that we might be way better than our 1-13 (now 2-13) record indicated. Now our team needs to build on that game and our fans need to start believing again. Oh, and start booing LeBron every time he touches the ball as we did in the past few years. I'm confident he couldn't hear my solo booing from Section 402.

While Tuesday's win made me feel hopeful again, it's probably the fourth best win over LeBron teams I've attended. So in honor of our two days of post-win game-free gloating, I feel it's appropriate to re-live the top three wins over LeBron in my time at Verizon Center. It always feels good to reminisce about these games. And yes, I know I'm hung up on this whole hating LeBron thing and I don't care. I'm in good company: Dan Steinberg and Michael Jenkins are right there with me.

Bronze Medal Winner: January 4, 2009 a.k.a. the Crab Dribble Game.
The 2008-2009 NBA season saw the Wizards fall precipitously. After four consecutive playoff appearances and three hard-fought postseason series against LeBron's Cleveland Cavaliers, our team was officially lottery bound again. By the time this game rolled around after the 2009 new year, the Wizards were mired in last place with a 6-25 record and the Cavaliers were riding high at 27-5. The two teams had met a couple of weeks earlier on Christmas Day where the Wizards made a game of an early blowout and ended up losing by four. This game went the exact opposite way, with the Wizards building a sizeable lead before the Cavs made a run and the Wizards did their best to fumble the game away. What made this game special was how it ended.

With 10.5 seconds remaining, the Wizards led by 2 and the Cavaliers had the ball. Of course, the last play started with LeBron who drove the lane into traffic and drew a whistle. But incredibly and clearly audible and visible from our spot in Section 109, the whistle was for traveling. Traveling? On LeBron? Is that possible? LeBron of course went nuts, stupefied that the referees dared to call a travel. I've sat through enough games with LeBron calls that went against our team that I was similarly stunned. If only we'd had some of those calls for charging in past playoff years when Jared Jeffries was in place in front of LeBron. Despite LeBron's protests, the call stuck and we won the game.

But after the game, LeBron wouldn't let it go. The move, which he claimed the referees didn't understand, was a crab dribble. I guess when you get away with this stuff for long enough, you start to believe you are in the right. The post game quotes say it all.

LeBron James: "Bad call. That's one of my plays. You know, it kind of looks like a travel because it's slow, and it's kind of like high steps, but it's a one-two. I think they need to look at it again and need to understand that's not a travel."

Antawn Jamison: "He said he's seen the play a couple of times and didn't think he traveled, but we all know what traveling is. They got the tape to prove the history of that signature move that he has, but it was a travel, hands down. When he beats us on end-of-game situations or finds a way to get it done, we give him credit, but it didn't happen and the right call was called."

Caron Butler: "It's a travel. It was the exact same move two years ago in the playoffs. I definitely knew he traveled, but I didn't think they were gonna call it. You know, two years ago, looking in hindsight, it was the same thing that happened in the playoffs. And we get that call, who knows what would have happened with everybody healthy. But that was one of them situations in which a great player made a move, good officiation, and they called the call. And I was just like, 'Aw, man. There is a God. There is a God.'"

LeBron James: "WAAAAAAAHH!" OK, so that's a made up quote; he probably didn't actually say that. Probably.

Runner Up: November 18, 2009 a.k.a. DeShawn Stevenson Bobblehand Night.
When the Wizards put together the giveaway schedule for the 2009-2010 season, they chose the first home game against the Cavaliers as DeShawn Stevenson Bobblehand Night. That's right, bobbleHAND, not bobbleHEAD, in recognition of D-Steve's I can't feel my face move (where he waves his open palm in front of his face) as a celebration of big shots made. This is by far the coolest bobble I own and I assume the Wizards picked this night for the giveaway in recognition of DeShawn's history of verbal sparring with the Cavaliers' star.

Like the Crab Dribble Game, this game featured an underachieving 2-7 Wizards team playing an 8-3 Cavaliers team on its way to a second consective first place conference finish. Also like the Crab Dribble Game, the two teams had met a couple of weeks prior in Cleveland and the Cavaliers had emerged victorious. The Wizards were in the midst of an abyssmal start (or at least it seemed abyssmal back then) and needed a good game to get on track.

The Wizards killed the Cavs that night. It wasn't even close. But the best part was LeBron's behavior. The Wizards put DeShawn Stevenson on LeBron on the defensive end, which is really matching our shooting guard against the Cavs' small forward, and LeBron seemed to be pissed off about that, as if we would have the nerve to think that DeShawn could cover him. LeBron ended the game with 34 points but the kind of basketball he played was not team basketball and it killed the Cavs. Basically DeShawn got inside LeBron's head and made him give up the game. It was perfect. LeBron even managed to hurt his hand a little when he dunked aggressively on a fourth quarter breakaway when the game was far out of reach just to show how hard he can dunk.

For another perspective, I recommend you read Dan Steinberg's article about this game. OK, so it's pretty much the same perspective, just funnier and with more pictures. This may be the finest piece of sports writing ever.

The Champion: April 24, 2008 a.k.a. the Soulja Boy Game.

How is there ever going to be a game more fun than this one in the near future? I'm not sure that there is going to be, is the answer. Let's go to the transcripts.

March 13, 2008: The Wizards beat the Cavaliers at Verizon Center 101-99. DeShawn Stevenson after the game: "[LeBron's] overrated. And you can say I said that."

A few days later: LeBron James: "With DeShawn Stevenson, it is kind of funny. It's almost like Jay-Z saying something bad about Soulja Boy. There's no comparison. Enough said."

March 19, 2008: The Wizards beat the Orlando Magic in Orlando 87-86. DeShawn Stevenson after the game: "I hope we play Cleveland. I'm going to get Soulja Boy courtside seats and have him wear a DeShawn Stevenson jersey."

Sure enough the playoffs rolled around and the Wizards ended up in the first round against Cleveland. And sure enough, just like DeShawn promised, he sat Soulja Boy in the first row in a DeShawn Stevenson jersey. Trailing 0-2 in the series, the Wizards came out strong in game three. It was a 16 point game at the half, a 26 point game at the end of three and at the final buzzer, the Wizards had won by 36, the largest playoff margin of defeat for the Cavaliers and the largest playoff margin of victory for the Wizards ever. It was gloriously not even close and the building rocked.

The best moment came in the fourth quarter when Soulja Boy danced from his front row seat while making DeShawn's I can't feel my face motion. Moments later DeShawn hit back to back threes. Over James. The absurdity of this situation is not lost on me but it's one of my most cherished moments as a Wizards fan ever.

Now we just need to start winning more games like Tuesday's game this year. Atlanta up tonight.

The Playoff Years: 2004-2005 Through 2007-2008

The Wizards 25-57 record in the 2003-2004 season was poor enough to earn the team the number five pick in the 2004 draft. With the fifth pick, the team drafted Devin Harris out of the University of Wisconsin, but Harris never played for the Wizards. Instead, the team sent him along with Jerry Stackhouse and Christian Laettner to the Dallas Mavericks for reigning Sixth Man of the Year Antawn Jamison. It was the second major trade with the Mavericks in the last four years, but unlike the 2001 in-season trade which was essentially a salary dump, the acquisition of Jamison was designed to make the team substantially better. And it did.

That year, the combination of Jamison at the power forward spot with Gilbert Arenas and Larry Hughes in the backcourt were just spectacular. Arenas and Jamison were voted by the NBA coaches to the Eastern Conference All Star squad and Hughes might have joined them, had he not broken his wrist in the January 15 victory over the Phoenix Suns, a team at that time as hot as any other. After the season, Arenas was voted to the All-NBA Third Team and Hughes was voted to the All-NBA Defensive First Team but it was the team success, and not the individual honors, that made that season so special.

The team posted a 45-37 record, the best mark for the franchise since the 1978-1979 season, good for fifth in the Eastern Conference and a return trip to the playoffs for the first time since 1997. The team clinched their playoff berth on April 13 after a home victory against the Chicago Bulls and a loss the same night by the New Jersey Nets to the Indiana Pacers, which we watched on the scoreboard screen from our seats in Section 402 of the MCI Center after the Wizards took care of the Bulls. It would be the first of four consecutive playoff appearances, the longest streak since the Bullets made the postseason five years in a row from 1984 through 1988. Brendan Haywood, who had been my favorite player since his rookie year in 2001, and Jared Jeffries rounded out what would become a solid starting five. The bench on paper was a concern, with Juan Dixon, Jarvis Hayes, Etan Thomas and Michael Ruffin being the top reserves, but the team won. They beat the teams they were supposed to beat, posting a 26-9 record against teams that ended the season with losing records, and they were clutch in close games, going 20-10 in games decided by five points or less.

The first round playoff opponent that year was the Chicago Bulls, a team that had won two more games during the regular season than the Wizards. The Bulls took the first two games in Chicago before the Wizards evened it up at 2-2 with two victories at the MCI Center. The fifth game was tight and the Wizards would end up with the final possession of regulation in a game tied at 110. Then, with time winding down, Gilbert Arenas let fly a step back jumper over the outstretched arm of the Bulls' Kirk Heinrich with 0.3 seconds remaining. The shot hit the bottom of the net and the Wizards took the game and came home up three games to two. The photograph of that shot is awesome. I have a copy signed by Arenas and I pull it out and look at it sometimes when I'm longing for better times. I like to study the faces of the crowd; there is almost every emotion you can possibly experience at a sporting event on the faces of the Chicago fans. I'm sure their faces looked a lot different 0.3 seconds later. When Hinrich was traded to the Wizards before the 2010-2011 season, I thought about asking him to sign the photograph too, but I decided to not be that cruel.

The Wizards took game six and the series at home after being down big early, going ahead for good when Jared Jeffries stole the inbounds pass off the back of Chris Duhon and ran the length of the court for the slam. The crowd was going absolutely crazy; I can't wait for the now-Verizon Center to be like that again. In the second round of the playoffs, the team laid down and lost in four straight to the Dwayne Wade, Shaquille O'Neal and the rest of the Miami Heat, a team we had not beaten in seemingly forever. Despite the second round performance, the 2004-2005 season was memorable in so many ways and gave us something to build on and look forward to. The Arenas game five winner (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcajwfVHTYI) and Jeffries' steal in game six (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_seuj1YRJT4) are still fun to watch. I just hope those aren't the best moments I'll have as a Wizards fan.

In the 2005 offseason, the Cleveland Cavaliers decided Larry Hughes was the guy they needed to pair with LeBron James to make the team into a winner and offered him a five year, $70 million dollar deal. Ernie Grunfeld and the Wizards decided not to match. Good decision. Despite the team's success in the 2004-2005 season, Boogie had a history of nagging injuries like the broken wrist he sustained that year and $14 million a year was just too much to pay, something the Cavaliers would find out during the next two and a half seasons, before they elected to ship Larry to Chicago in a mid-season deal. To replace Larry, Grunfeld sent Kwame Brown along with Laron Profit to the Los Angeles Lakers for Caron Butler and Chucky Atkins in a deal that still defies common sense. Brown was almost a certified bust and Butler was an up and coming small forward in the last year of his rookie deal. I guess the Lakers felt it was worth taking a chance on Brown or maybe they knew that they wouldn't be able to retain Butler at the end of the season. Whatever the reason, the Wizards immediately inked Butler to a contract extension. Another good decision.

The 2005-2006 season was successful, but just a little bit less successful than the previous season. The team again made the playoffs, finishing the season with a record of 42-40, good for the fifth best record in the conference for the second year in a row. Individual success also continued: Gilbert Arenas was selected to the Eastern Conference All Star team and the All-NBA Third team for the second year in a row.

In the first round of the playoffs, the team drew Larry Hughes, LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. The two teams split the first four games, each team winning once at home and once on the other's floor. In game five in Cleveland, the Cavaliers edged out the Wizards by a single point in overtime, meaning we had to hold home court in game six in Washington or be done for the season. Game six also went to overtime. Toward the end of the extra session, Gilbert Arenas got fouled and stepped to the free throw line for two shots which, if he had made both, would have given the Wizards a three point lead. Then the first notable incident between Lebron James and the Wizards franchise happened. Rather than allow Gilbert to shoot the free throws unimpeded, LeBron decided to step to the charity stripe with Gilbert and talk some trash, telling him that if he missed the two free throws, the series was over. It should be noted that this sort of act is now an automatic technical foul, but the officials in that game six decided what LeBron did would not draw an infraction of any sort. Of course, Gilbert missed them both and on the ensuing possession with a few seconds left, Damon Jones hit a jumper to seal the game for Cleveland and our season was over.

The Wizards re-loaded in the 2006 offseason, signing free agents DeShawn Stevenson and Darius Songaila. The team started slow in November, going 4-9, but caught fire in December and January, posting a 22-9 mark through those two months. But it wasn't just that they were winning; the team was hot and Gilbert Arenas for those two months was arguably the best player in the NBA. He scored a franchise record 60 points in an overtime game against the Lakers in LA on December 17 and followed that with a 56 point effort in another overtime game in Phoenix less than a week later. Both those games were big road wins for the team, which doesn't always happen when a superstar fills it up. Then the team came back to Washington and Gilbert continued to impress, this time with game winning buzzer beating shots against the Milwaukee Bucks on January 3rd and then again against the Utah Jazz in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day matinee. I remember watching the Milwaukee game from our seats in Section 109. Gilbert let that shot go and turned around and headed for the locker room before it hit the bottom of the net. He just knew it was going in. And two weeks later he knew the Jazz had no chance at the end of the game with the ball in his hands and he was right again. At the All Star break, the team had the best record in the conference and Eddie Jordan would be named the Eastern Conference All Star coach, where he was joined by Gilbert in his third consecutive All Star appearance and Caron Butler in his first.

Then the wheels came off. On January 30, Antawn Jamison had injured his knee, and it showed in the team's February performance. Jamison would return, but a month and a half later, Butler went down, also with a knee injury, only to return and then fracture his hand on April Fools' Day in Milwaukee. But the biggest blow came on April 4 in a home game against the Charlotte Bobcats. Late in the first quarter, Gerald Wallace of the Bobcats fell into Gilbert Arenas' leg; the way Wallace fell twisted Gilbert's leg in a way it was not supposed to bend and Gilbert tore the meniscus in his knee. He would never be the same player again.

The Wizards ended that season with a 2-8 record in the final ten games and limped into the playoffs without Arenas or Butler as the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference with a 41-41 overall record. The team again drew LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round of the playoffs and this year went down in four straight. With a second playoff elimination in two years at the hands of the Cavaliers, Wizards fans were starting to really dislike both the Cavaliers and James, who often whined and cried his way through games and was routinely booed in Washington. I guess we were trendsetters in that regard. If there was a season in the last 12 years of being a Wizards season ticketholder that I could truly look back on with regret, it would be the 2006-2007 season. It all went wrong so fast.

Despite the 2006-2007 season collapse, the franchise still felt it had a winner in the Arenas-Butler-Jamison led team and made no major changes in the offseason. Arenas had major knee surgery to repair his torn meniscus and it appeared our Big Three were healthy going into the season and poised to take a run at an Eastern Conference championship. They weren't. Gilbert's knee wasn't right and the team shut him down after only eight games, with the team owning a 3-5 record. But the team gelled around Jamison and Butler, who both made return trips to the All Star game that year, and the team finished with a 43-39 record, an improvement of two games over the prior season.

For the third year in a row, the Wizards drew the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round of the playoffs, this time as the four-five matchup with Cleveland owning the better record and home court advantage. The series was highly anticipated due to the two teams facing each other in the playoffs the prior two years, but DeShawn Stevenson amped up the rivalry a little after the Wizards March 13 victory over the Cavaliers at Verizon Center. In a post game interview, Stevenson called LeBron James "overrated" and when asked to respond a few days later, James said "With DeShawn Stevenson, it is kind of funny. It's almost like Jay-Z saying something bad about Soulja Boy. There's no comparison. Enough said."

The 2008 playoff series between the Wizards and Cavaliers seemingly featured drama of every sort. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd believe that the NBA fixed this series to allow the Cavaliers to win. Realistically, it's silly to think that the series was fixed; I mean, who would fix a first round playoff series? But there were just too many things that either the officials or the league did or didn't do to handicap our chances for victory so I allow myself to think that we were doomed to lose that series sometimes.

It started in a close game one. In that game, a seven point loss, the Wizards would have benefited from the couple of free throws and possession from LeBron James' flagrant foul elbow thrown to the head of Andray Blatche. The foul was in retaliation for an earlier foul on James after which he writhed on the court in agony for a few minutes in a way only LeBron James can. Only the elbow wasn't called, either as a flagrant foul or as a personal foul. It was missed entirely by the officials. The league quietly handed down a flagrant foul after the fact, not that it did us any good. We were down 1-0 but there was plenty of time to recover.

Game two was a blowout 30 point victory for the Cavaliers, the largest margin of victory in a playoff game in that franchise's history. The game turned in the decisive third period, when Brendan Haywood picked up a flagrant two foul for a shove on James, after which James told referee Danny Crawford that the Wizards were trying to hurt him. Apparently Crawford believed him because he threw Haywood out of the game and the Wizards just couldn't recover after that. 2-0. Now it looked like we were maybe headed for another sweep like the previous year.

Back at Verizon Center, the Wizards took game three by 36 and made it a 2-1 series in a game that featured Soulja Boy in the front row dressed in a DeShawn Stevenson jersey. That game may have been the most entertaining Wizards playoff game ever as Soulja Boy rapped and we serenaded James with chants of "o-ver-rated" and just relished the blowout. But the Cavaliers rebounded to win game four in a game which DeShawn Stevenson received a flagrant foul for knocking off LeBron's headband during the game and the NBA piled on with a $25,000 fine after the game for what they described as a "menacing gesture" made by D-Steve in the first quarter.

So the Cavaliers headed back to Cleveland up 3-1 with a chance to close out the series in the next game. But they couldn't. Caron Butler made sure of that when he hit the game winning layup with 3.9 seconds to give the Wizards a one point victory. It was back to DC for game six and a chance to even the series at three games each.

But then the league intervened again. In the first quarter of game five, LeBron James became entangled with Darius Songaila on the baseline and in the process of getting untangled, Darius' hand hit James' face. LeBron acted as if he had been cold-cocked, snapping his head back and drawing a technical foul, continuing a sequence of over reactions and flops that he had been engaged in for the entire series. A day passed before the NBA handed a one game suspension down to Songaila late in the morning of game six. Despite our efforts, the team lost and went down to the Cavaliers for the third straight year.

After the series, DeShawn Stevenson summed it up perfectly, declaring "It just shows you he gets any call he wants." Even Papa John's, a corporate sponsor of both the Wizards and Cavaliers, understood James' fake histrionics, handing out t-shirts at Verizon Center with the number "23" and "Crybaby" on the back. In the end (and it was unfortunately really the end), the Wizards had been beaten three straight by the Cavaliers. I'll never root for that franchise or LeBron for the way he beat us those three years.