4 Days 3 Games 0 Wins

Editor's Note: Probably because he's still looking to record his first official ZA comment, guest contributor Cap City is back at it. Get caught up on the Wiz now, before they trounce the Thunder and become the toast of the league!

Another exciting weekend of Wizards basketball. I was able to catch the first two games on the talking picture box and was in the stands for Monday's matinee against the Rockets (eight bucks on Stubhub, even cheaper on the street), so I have a pretty clear picture of where the team stands going in to tonight's tilt against the Thunder. In case you didn't spend your holiday weekend obsessively observing the worst team in the league, allow me to bring you up to speed.

The two matchups with Philly were firsthalfagainsttheMonstars one-sided, to the point that I now believe in Philly as a legitimate playoff team. This might seem obvious, since they're 10-3 and have already put some distance between themselves and the rest of the crummy Atlantic Division, but I wasn't convinced.   After all, Philly's opponents in their 10 wins have a combined record of 37-91 (including Indiana, at 9-3, their only true test). Taking a whupping for 96 minutes chased my doubts away; they're a top-4 seed. 

Those two games were largely forgettable, except for the new promotion Papa Johns unveiled, offering half-off pizza if the Wizards score 100 points and win. Pretty low-risk strategy there. Until...

Monday, when the Wizards finally scored 100! Now initially, it did not appear we were headed for such lofty heights. Our first six possessions went: Young misses fadeaway, Young misses turnaround, Young misses three as the shot clock expired (tipout to Wall for a layup), Wall lob broken up (JaVale travels on subsequent inbounds), Booker goes one-on-one (why?), misses, and, to round things out, Young fadeaway (misses). But from there we settled in considerably and ultimately managed to crack triple digits. The win eluded us though, so no pizza. Bummer.

There were basically two positives I took away from Monday's game. First, Chris Singleton deserves his spot in the starting lineup purely for his D. Against the Rockets, foul trouble limited Singleton to 18 minutes. By my count, he spent 12 of those minutes checking Kevin Martin and managed to hold one of the league's better scorers to just two points on 0 of 3 shooting. When Singleton sat, Martin torched Jordan Crawford and Roger Mason Jr. for 23 points on 7 of 13 footing. Stay out of foul trouble Chris!

Second, John Wall really wants to win. That statement has nothing do to with his sparkling stat line and everything to do with his full out dive for a loose ball down 15 with eight minutes to go. Call me old fashioned, but anybody who does that can run point for my team. 38 points is nice too.

Seven other notes from the game:

1. During a second quarter timeout, Nick Young spent the entire time watching the Wizards girls on the big screen instead of listening to Flip explain a play.

2. JaVale is consistently the most entertaining player on Guess the Show Tune, this time correctly guessing The Cosby Show and becoming very pleased with himself.

3. On defense, Jan + Blatche = Dunks

4. Two young girls had a sign that read, "Let Go Wizards." I don't think it was a typo.

5. Some recaps made it seem as if Flip took JaVale out after his self alley-oop. He was actually benched later on, after getting whistled for traveling (again), then walking downcourt. Unfortunately everyone else was running, and he arrived at the other end just in time to get dunked on by Samuel Dalembert.

6. At some point I wrote down, "JaVale is terrifying." I forget the context and it does not matter; they are all appropriate.

7. The Rockets would make a great BASEketball team. They literally don't miss free throws (fine, one). Think of them as the Dallas Fellons. If the Wizards were then the Milwaukee Beers, Jan Vesely would have to be Squeak Scolari.