http://www.nba.com/games/20060416/CLEWAS/r...=scoreboardhome<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>WASHINGTON, April 16 (Ticker) -- Gilbert Arenas and the Washington Wizards reserved their postseason invitation. Arenas scored 35 points as the Wizards stopped a five-game losing streak and clinched a playoff berth with a 104-92 thrashing of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Caron Butler returned after missing the previous five contests with a thumb injury to add 21 points for Washington (40-40), which is one-half game ahead of idle Indiana and Milwaukee for fifth place in the Eastern Conference. Whoever finishes fifth will face the fourth-seeded Cavaliers (48-32) in the first round of the playoffs. The Wizards snapped their longest losing streak of the season in impressive fashion, trailing for fewer than two minutes at the outset before taking the lead for good.</div> (click link to read more)About muthafuckin time. Butler returned and his usual statline of 21 pts, 8 rebs, and 4 stls. Pretty good for a guy coming off a sprained right thumb injury. We kept a big lead until the end of the 3rd, where we were by 26, I believe. Thats when <Censored> happened in the 4th, where Cavs made this big run to cut it to 9. But behind a few clutch jumpers from Gil, we managed to hang on. But still, I would have liked us to murder the hell out of Cleveland in the 4th. That breakdown could've cost us the game if it wasnt for Gil. We look like a totally different team with Caron out there on the court. Everything runs so smoothly, and I predict we win these last 2 games against Milwaukee and Detroit. We need to hang on to the 5th seed so we can face Cleveland in the 1st round. I definitely want to match up with them. Let's murder Milwaukee on Tuesday.
Man, the Wizards were able to move the ball around more, force a lot more turnovers and score on fastbreaks with Caron in the lineup. No one had a bad game and although our reserves had lost that big lead, Gilbert was able to close out the game with his clutch jumpers. Congrats to the Wizards.
Great job by the Wizards. They are proving to be a pretty good team. Too bad Larry Hughes never was able to make a big factor.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wade3 @ Apr 17 2006, 10:03 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Great job by the Wizards. They are proving to be a pretty good team. Too bad Larry Hughes never was able to make a big factor.</div>What are you talking about? Hughes had the best season of his career as a Wizard.
