TheItalianStallion

Good lord, how many missed calls were there at the end? The "goaltend," calling Ariza for a ticky-tack OF then calling Beal for a block on what was a textbook charge at the other end moments later, not giving Beal FTs at the end of OT2, moving screens and travels all over the place, including the big one at the end of OT2............and yet we won. I'm withdrawing my earlier suggestion that we tank what remains of the season if Nene is ruled out for an extended period; we finished the Cleveland game strong after he went down, and now won 2 full games without Nene. And without Seraphin and lackluster play from Webster. Given how weak our remaining schedule is, I now have confidence that we can continue winning without Nene.

Wasn't one of our losses to Toronto the game where Wall had something like 4 steals and 20 points in just the 3rd quarter, but no one else showed up? And the most recent one, where Ariza, Beal, & Webster were ALL cold. I think Toronto is very fortunate to have 3 wins over us this year. They are again fortunate that we'll be without Nene. Hopefully our shooters come to play this time.

Bit concerning that it took 20+ pt performances from 4 of our guys to beat a weak team by single digits. I hope Seraphin can start making good on the promise he shows at times.

Destino: "A little too late to tank, with just 26 games left." If we make the playoffs, Grunfeld and Witt may get extensions. If we miss, no way does that happen. Obviously it's too late in all likelihood to get the #1 pick or anything, but we can still tank enough to miss the playoffs. This conversation may be premature. Get well Nene.

Good win. Hope Nene's alright. If he's out for an extended stretch, I say we just tank the season, get a better pick, and get Wittman & Grunfeld canned.

We've had a hard time winning anything other than games which we control pretty much the whole way. Games which are single-score inside of 2 mins are ones which we've typically lost. Nice to see us win one, even if it was against a weak team. Part of being a winning team is stealing games from better teams like OKC, but an arguably even bigger part is finding ways to win the games you're expected to win, no matter how sloppy and cold it gets.

Nene's shots have nice arc on them today, relative to their usual flat trajectory.

Stevemcqueen writes in post #26092: "I always wondered why that sound was so familiar. I thought it was from Mario, when you punch the bricks and coins pop out." ------------------------------------------------------- Two different sounds, and I've heard both of them used in different arenas. ES isn't letting me copy and paste things for some reason, though if you go to youtube and search "sonic the hedgehog ost - extra continue" and "super Mario bros coin sound effect" you can find them.

LOL @ the "extra continue" jingle from Sonic the Hedgehog being used when ATL players made FTs.

It really perplexes me that someone with a good 15-20 ft jumper struggles so much at the line.

Disappointed that Wall didn't get more minutes. East made its big run with Wall in the game, and he had 12 points in just 15 mins.

I tuned in to watch a game, not a concert. These ridiculously long intros need to be trimmed down.

Let's not forget the push in the back on Seraphin's putback, Beal's 3pt shot at the end of one of the quarters (can't remember which), Howard's non-goaltend on Nene........normally I'd rant about this being why we probably won't advance past the 1st round, but no. Our guys did a great job of overcoming the bad calls and battling back to regain the lead. On top of all the others, 3 bad calls in the final seconds of a single-score game is more than anyone should be expected to overcome.

Weak teams always have someone blow up with a big game against us. This time it was the whole team; the shooting stats for their whole team were good. Valiant comeback attempt, but man does it get frustrating that weak teams always seem to bring their A-game against us.

Seraphin NEEDS to get minutes in every game. He's hot and cold; sometimes when he's put in, he stinks it up for 3 mins then has to be taken out. If he does that, then yank him. But he needs to be given a chance to get in his rhythm; he can't get hot like tonight if he doesn't get any minutes. Awesome game!

We seem to have OKC's number. If by some miracle we made it to the NBA finals this year (hey, I can dream, right?) and we drew them as our opponent, I would not put an upset past our guys.

I'm glad that we've figured out how to win on the road. I thought we overachieved at home last year (when healthy, that is) and I wasn't expecting us to maintain that this year, but I was expecting better than what we've been getting. If we could combine last year's home play with this year's road play..........

This has been one of the most frustrating stretches during all my years as a DC sports fan. Not the worst, but most frustrating. I think our D was pretty good (well, aside from that horrible play with Wallace at the end...); they just kept making low % shots. From a bad shooting team. We always seem to draw these subpar teams on nights when one or more of their players is inexplicably red hot. Very similar to our loss to Milwaukee back when we were at 9-9. Yes, there is no excuse for the bad start, but even when we got back in it they kept making ridiculous shots. I'm not a superstitious or spiritual person, but nights like this give me pause........

This team is so frustrating. I just can't figure how a team with this many good outside shooters and bigs who can hit 15-20 footers struggles so much at the line.

We needed this after that disheartening loss to Houston several days back. Great response to Miami's rally!!

I forgot that we had a game tonight until near the end. I tuned in with around 20 seconds to go, when we had a 7-point lead, at which point we basically had it in the bag. Maybe it's best that I missed the bulk of the game; clearly I missed a very stressful 11 minute period.

How does a team which is so good at outside shooting suck so bad at FTs? Heck, even our bigs are pretty good shooters, yet they aren't at all reliable either. Nene was........what, 0-4? Ridiculous. When is Harrington coming back?

Good win. This is the kind of game we weren't winning early on, like Detroit & Philly. Sucks that Seraphin hasn't been able to regain his form from 2 years ago. We could be darn good with some better depth.

This hasn't been an issue since I wrote this. Not coincidentally we've won 3 straight close games.

I can't believe how bad our bigs are at finishing around the basket when they've been dished to.