Washington
Philip Maymin
Basketball News Services
The Chicago Bulls took a 1-0 lead in its series against the Wizards last night as they beat Washington 103-94behind an MVP-type performance by rookie Andres Nocioni. On Washington's side, Larry Hughes had a tremendous 31-point game to lead all scorers but the other two Beltway All-Stars in Gilbert Arenas and Antawn Jamison came up below expectations.
Arenas hit just 3 of his 19 shots and got to the line only two times (making both). He adjusted his game to become more of a distributor and had a game-high 8 assists, and also 8 rebounds, second on the Wiz behind Kwame Brown, but finished with just 9 points. Jamison finished with 14 points and 7 rebounds but for the Wizards to go deep in the postseason he will have to nearly double that production.
Kwame Brown had a solid game off the bench, scoring 13 points on 5-of-11 shooting and grabbing a team-high 9 rebounds, plus dishing out 2 assists, but Nocioni put them all to shame with his 18 point rebounding effort. Chris Duhon of the Bulls also got 10 rebounds; those were the only two players in the whole game to get double-digit rebounds.
If Chicago is hoping Arenas continues to be invisible, they will be supremely disappointed come Wednesday night. As his backcourt made Hughes said after the game, "He is one of the best shooters in the league. He will be back the next game."
NEXT GAME
Washington (trails the series 0-1) faces Chicago (who by symmetry lead the series 1-0) on Wednesday, April 27th, again in Chicago, where they will hope rookies stop having MVP-type games. The game starts at 8:30pm Eastern and will be broadcast on CSN, NBA TV, and RTV.
TEAM NOTES
The Wizards kept pace with the Bulls in terms of fast break points (14-11 advantage) and points in the paint (30-36 disadvantage) and had a seven point lead at one point in this game which saw 17 lead changes and 15 ties but it just didn't come together for them.
Check out the postgame quotes.
INJURY UPDATE
Peter John Ramos(knee),Jarvis Hayes(knee), andDamone Brown (shoulder) are on the injured list.
Mike Wise ofThe Washington Postwrites: With more than four minutes left in the second quarter, Gilbert Arenas had Kwame Brown inside. The much-maligned young center had sealed off his man and only needed Arenas to lob it over the top for a dunk. Arenas never saw him, instead firing a 19-footer that missed.Antawn Jamison and Larry Hughes each had their own opportunities to involve Brown and other teammates in the second half. But for the most part, they put their heads down and forced the issue, stubbornly believing they would be rewarded at the foul line in the fourth quarter.
Michael Wilbon ofThe Washington Postwrites: The Washington Wizards figured Gilbert Arenas would catch fire at some point because he almost always does.They had every reason to be encouraged at halftime, down one, because Arenas, had not a single basket in six shots. Arenas averages 25.5 points per game in the regular season. He averaged 30 against the Chicago Bulls in three games during the regular season. The Wizards just knew the points were coming, if not in bunches then at least enough to steal Game 1 here against the Bulls. But this isn't the regular season. The Bulls decided to try to take Arenas out of the action and they did. He missed 16 of 19 shots, scored a mere nine points and simply didn't have any kind of game offensively. The result of Arenas's ineffectiveness and the dominance of a Bulls rookie named Andres Nocioni resulted in a 103-94 Chicago victory and the very first playoff-style examination Arenas has had in his career.
Tom Knott ofThe Washington Timeswrites: The Wizards could not hold up to the intensity of the playoffs and the Bulls in United Center yesterday.They allowed the franchise's first playoff game in eight years to slip away in the waning minutes of a see-saw affair. It was a game that could have been theirs. The Wizards succumbed to the crowd and to the moment and to perhaps wanting something too badly in losing Game 1 to the Bulls 103-94.
John N. Mitchell ofThe Washington Timeswrites: The good news for the Washington Wizards after their 103-94 loss to the Chicago Bulls last night in Game 1 of the best-of-7 series at United Center is that Gilbert Arenas and Antawn Jamison don't figure to shoot a combined 9-for-34 again.The bad news is that the Wizards' sporadic defense looks fully capable of allowing players on the banged-up Bulls to appear better than they really are.
John N. Mitchell ofThe Washington Timeswrites: Wizards owner Abe Pollin sat behind the Washington bench at United Center beaming with pride, happy to be in attendance last night at his team's first playoff game in eight seasons.Did the league's senior owner ever think he would be back in this position? "I think it's fantastic, it's very exciting and I'm very proud of my team," said Pollin, who sat with a contingent from Washington Sports & Entertainment. "We've got some guys who are struggling a little bit but I'm sure they are going to come around. As for us getting back here, they call me the nutty optimist and I've always known we'd get back to the playoffs and here I am."
Nancy Armour of The Associated Press writes inSJ-R.com: If rookies Ben Gordon and Andres Nocioni can put on this kind of show in their first NBA playoff game, imagine what's in store down the road.Gordon scored 12 of his 30 points in the fourth quarter, and Nocioni added 25 points and 18 rebounds while playing all 48 minutes to lift the Chicago Bulls to a 103-94 victory over the Washington Wizards on Sunday. It was Chicago's first playoff victory since the dynasty days.
Phillip Crivellone ofThe Chicago Flamewrites: Washington's lead scorer Gilbert Arenas was three months old the last time the "Wizards" won a playoff series.In Wizards terms, that's only one name-change ago - back then, they were known as the Washington Bullets. In May of 1997 owner Abe Polen changed the name because it was deemed too violent in a time where high-profile shooting deaths were becoming the norm. That was the last of five name changes in Wizards history - a history, believe it or not, that has more to do with Chicago even before His Airness shocked us all and donned that hideous teal jersey.