Well, this game isn't televised, but I think it should be airingon Sportstalk 980. I'm going to this game, so I'm pretty excited about how the team will look for the upcoming season. What do you guys expect out of this preseason?
<u>Wizards Ready to Get Started</u> <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Washington Wizards Coach Eddie Jordan was asked what fans can expect to see tonight when his team opens an eight-game preseason schedule against the Toronto Raptors at Verizon Center. "If you compare us to last year, you'll see a more scrappy team, a more physical team," Jordan said. "And yet, we are probably going to be a little sloppy like a lot of other teams this time of year. You just want to limit mistakes."</div> Link
Well, I'm back from the game and it was a pretty good one. I was impressed with the first unit of how they turned up the tempo once the rebound was grabbed, creating fastbreaks, free throw opportunities, and back door cuts. Gilbert was Gilbert, his three point shot was impressive as he scored 29 points in 29 minutes (He didn't play the fourth quarter). Caron Butler was great on defense creating turnovers by tipping a lot of passes, getting some steals and rebounding. Antawn Jamison's shot is still silky smooth, but his post defense is still lagging. He got beat on several occasions by Chris Bosh. The new guy DeShawn Stevenson had a decent game making the best out of his opportunities. So basically, this lineup is going to be one that you can't sleep on and you'll have to be aware on every play as they have the ability to pass forever. While the 1st unit was able to create a 28-14 in the 1st quarter, the 2nd unit wasn't able to keep it. On 1 point, they had commited 4 straight turnoevers from just careless passing. You'll see that they weren't able to create a tempo on offense like the 1st unit was able to do, so they resorted to 2 on 2 plays. Jarvis Hayes looked like Kobe Bryant in the 4th quarter. He was just making every shot he was gunning for, which kept the team in the game and that's something that we should all be looking for this season. What got us the loss near the end was the presence of Jose Garbajosa shooting 3-7 in 3-point land including 1 that gave them the 91-88 lead.
