at Teams: <span style="color:#0000FF">Washington Wizards 19-13</span> at <span style="color:#4B0082">Toronto Raptors 14-19</span>Date: January 7th, 2007TV: NBALP, CSNTime: 1.00 PM EST<span style="color:#0000FF"><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman">Washington Wizards Starting Lineup</span></span></span>PG Gilbert Arenas 30.5 ppg, 6.6 apg, 4.6 rpgSG DeShawn Stevenson 9.8 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 2.5 apgSF Caron Butler 20.9 ppg, 8 rpg, 3.9 apgPF Antawn Jamison 19.5 ppg, 8.3 rpg, 1.8 apgC Brendan Haywood 6.6 ppg, 6.7 rpg<span style="color:#0000FF">Washington's X-Factor</span>Brendan HaywoodHaywood played with tons of intensity against the Clippers on Friday night, finishing with 13 points, 12 rebounds, 2 blocks, and 3 steals! That performance is arguably his best all-around performance with the Wizards this season. He played a great game, and he limited Elton Brand a bit more offensively in the 2nd half. Assuming he's guarding Toronto's young star <span style="color:#4B0082">Chris Bosh</span>, Haywood needs to limit Bosh from getting any easy buckets inside. <span style="color:#4B0082"><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman">Toronto Raptors Starting Lineup</span></span></span>PG TJ Ford 16 ppg, 8.1 apg, 3.9 rpgSG Anthony Parker 11.1 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 1.1 apgSF Andrea Bargnani 10 ppg, 3.7 rpgPF Chris Bosh 20.8 ppg, 12 rpg, 2.1 apgC Rasho Nesterovic 6.2 ppg, 4.9 rpg<span style="color:#4B0082">Toronto's X-Factor</span>Andrea BargnaniToronto's 1st pick in the 2006 NBA draft has been playing well, lately. He finished up with 12 points against the Hawks last night in a 105-92 win, and the game before that he scored 17 points against the Suns, in a 2-point loss, 100-98. Bargnani is a threat from the perimeter; he can shoot it from anywhere on the court for a big man. Jamison has to stick to him or else he'll get burned by 7 footer out of Italy. <span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman">Injuries</span></span><span style="color:#4B0082">TJ Ford, TOR Questionable</span><span style="color:#0000FF">Etan Thomas, WAS Questionable</span><span style="color:#0000FF">Darius Songaila, WAS Out</span><span style="color:#0000FF">Michael Ruffin, WAS Out</span><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman">Predictions</span></span>Following Gil's big birthday bash, I expect the Wizards to take this one on the road against the Raptors. There's a chance that TJ Ford might not even play, which helps Gil because Ford has always been able to give Gil some kind of struggle on offense. Chris Bosh has solid post moves and can hit it from 15 feet out, I expect him to have a great game. Caron will be Caron, which means he'll definitely fill up the stat sheet once again. Jamison will have a field day from three considering that Bargnani is a horrid defensive player. WAS 112TOR 98
I'm ready for this game, I kind of want to see a big night out of someone other than one of our guys in the big three. Seems like DeShawn nor Daniels ever have a big night, sometimes Haywood has good rebounding nights. Anyways if we dominate this game I think it will pretty much convince me we're taking the division even though it is still kind of early.
If TJ plays, then we might have a chance at this. I'm scared though. Arenas might actually score 50 on us with our horrible PG defense.
TJ, was playing good D on Gil when he was with the Bucks last year. GArenas, Deshawn had some big nights, a few games ago. He didn't do much against the Clippers last game, but I hope he plays well today.
Wizards lose by 5 after being odwn by 20. The Wizards as a whole were not playing well today, they weren't shooting well, and they didn't have one bit of luck. Gil dropped 33.
Wow...what a crazy game. We looked horrible when the Wizards decided to press in the 4th. Just freaking pathetic. Our defense was also pathetic. We let them get to the free throw line 87 times. That was just horrible. We just let them drive right by us. Got to give it up to our offense though.Mo has a bit of an off night. He missed a couple great looks, bit of a low scoring day. Anthony Parker looked excellent in the first. He continued his hot outside shooting, nailing 2-2 from outside the line, and he got his mid range going. Got a few O boards too. Chris Bosh looked great. He got a sh*t load of rebounds, made his outside shots, got inside, typical excellent Chris Bosh game.I felt that TJ Ford took way too many shots today. I think he has to pass it alot more. He only got like 3 assists. Jose Calderon played really well. He continued to set up our guys well, and he broke down the defense with his excellent driving abilities. Hey, he even hit a 3!Andrea Bargnani played well. He went inside more than usual today, hit a couple of threes. He missed some open ones too, but all in all a good game for him. He has PG vision. He and Bosh threw out some great passes tonight.Joey G followed up on his career night 2 days ago with a very solid outing. He hit a few mid range jumpers, went strong to the hole, got offensive rebounds. Great game. He missed a couple of easy baskets, but hey, he did some excellent things too.A few other notes. Fred Jones was a DNP - Coaches decision today. He's in Mitchell's dawg house right now Gilbert Arenas just split up the D in the second. Luckily for us, he had a relatively cold shooting night, or else he would have gotten 50 with the amount of times he went to the stripe. Caron Butler was nailing some J's. Hey, even DeShawn Stevenson was hitting some shots. Jarvis Hayes also had a good shooting night. Luckily for us, the Big 3 for WAS wasn't very effective at all in the first half, or else we would have lost for sure in our closing minute meltdown.Well, hey, it's a vic against a great team. I'm happy. We play the Nets next.
This was a tough loss. Toronto was clearly the better team today. Washington was never able to take the lead in the 2nd half, and dug themselves a huge hole. Amazingly, in a pretty short period of time, they cut the lead to 5 in the closing minutes. I respect our comeback against Toronto tremendously, and not giving up, but we should have won this game since the 1st quarter. Ah well, Gil wasn't his Hibachi self today, but he did get to the line a ton. Butler started to heat up during our comeback, which was a good sign. Jamison crashed the boards, too, which is nice to see. Jarvis played a good game today. He didn't contribute as much in the 2nd half, but but he did play his best game of the season. This is what we need him to do off the bench. Haywood played real well today, also. He's starting to use those post moves effectively against other big men and getting to the line, too. This was a bad game to lose, but we always have trouble against Toronto, especially on the road. We have to look forward to the game on Wednesday against the Bulls, which should be an extremely fun game to watch.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CB4AllStar @ Jan 7 2007, 04:30 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Wow...what a crazy game. We looked horrible when the Wizards decided to press in the 4th. Just freaking pathetic. Our defense was also pathetic. We let them get to the free throw line 87 times. That was just horrible. We just let them drive right by us. Got to give it up to our offense though.Mo has a bit of an off night. He missed a couple great looks, bit of a low scoring day. Anthony Parker looked excellent in the first. He continued his hot outside shooting, nailing 2-2 from outside the line, and he got his mid range going. Got a few O boards too. Chris Bosh looked great. He got a sh*t load of rebounds, made his outside shots, got inside, typical excellent Chris Bosh game.I felt that TJ Ford took way too many shots today. I think he has to pass it alot more. He only got like 3 assists. Jose Calderon played really well. He continued to set up our guys well, and he broke down the defense with his excellent driving abilities. Hey, he even hit a 3!Andrea Bargnani played well. He went inside more than usual today, hit a couple of threes. He missed some open ones too, but all in all a good game for him. He has PG vision. He and Bosh threw out some great passes tonight.Joey G followed up on his career night 2 days ago with a very solid outing. He hit a few mid range jumpers, went strong to the hole, got offensive rebounds. Great game. He missed a couple of easy baskets, but hey, he did some excellent things too.A few other notes. Fred Jones was a DNP - Coaches decision today. He's in Mitchell's dawg house right now Gilbert Arenas just split up the D in the second. Luckily for us, he had a relatively cold shooting night, or else he would have gotten 50 with the amount of times he went to the stripe. Caron Butler was nailing some J's. Hey, even DeShawn Stevenson was hitting some shots. Jarvis Hayes also had a good shooting night. Luckily for us, the Big 3 for WAS wasn't very effective at all in the first half, or else we would have lost for sure in our closing minute meltdown.Well, hey, it's a vic against a great team. I'm happy. We play the Nets next.</div>lol CB4, the Wizards only attempterd 41 free throws tonight.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CB4AllStar @ Jan 7 2007, 08:45 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I was obviously making a joke out of it, dude...</div>You should of put 877 times lol
