The Washington Wizards are now officially in uncharted waters. They have begun the dubious task of staying afloat while playing winning basketball. All indications after last Saturday night’s victory over the Indiana Pacers is that this team can be up to the challenge.
Last year at this time most Wizards’ fans and even team executives clearly wanted to see the team aspire to make the playoffs. They delivered and sent D.C. into a frenzy as the young and talented group got to the Eastern Conference Semi-finals. Head coach Randy Whitman would deliver on the quest to be a playoff team and become relevant again.
Fast forward to this season. The quest is for the young Wizards to be an elite team within the conference and challenge the Lebron-James-led Cleveland Cavaliers and the Derrick-Rose-led Chicago Bulls. Other teams also vying for the position are the Toronto Raptors who went into last year’s playoffs as the Eastern Conference’s number three seed. The Detroit Pistons, Charlotte Hornets, Atlanta Hawks and Miami Heat — even without James — look to be in the mix as well. The Wizards have their work cut out for them.
The expectations of playing winning basketball has been placed upon Washington and now is when the team growing into a consistent winner must take place.
In years past, maybe this team loses last night to an Indiana team they are supposed to beat. The Wizards started the first quarter off with excellent energy and had a commanding lead of 32-14 when the period ended. As most teams do in the NBA, the Pacers would close the gap with a nice third quarter of their own and made it into a ballgame. In that quarter they would outscore the Wizards by 11 points. But as good teams do, the Wizards found a way to close out the game and get the win even though it wasn’t pretty.
At 5-2 in this young season, the team has shown that it can win on nights when they are not playing their best basketball. This is the sign of a good team.
In order to be great however, Washington will have to display a killer instinct game-in and game-out.
All indications are that they have finally found a way to be a winner. Now they must maintain that consistency throughout the season.