Sixers 120

Wizards 112

Headed into the All-Star break, the Washington Wizards were undoubtedly the hottest team in the
Eastern Conference. They had won 18 of their last 21 games and were looking to secure a home
playoff series. The DC team fell back to earth on Friday with a rather embarrassing defensive
performance to a Philadelphia squad without their best player in Joel Embiid. At the end of the
day, the 120-112 loss to the Sixers is not the end of the world, but certainly a tough pill to
swallow with Utah, Golden State, and Toronto twice on deck.

Here are your three takeaways from Washingtons road loss that drops their record away from the
Verizon Center to 10-15.

Miscues, miscues, and more miscues. Washington has no one but themselves to blame for
losing the season-series with the 76ers. Tonight, the Wizards committed 17 turnovers that
Philadelphia was able to turn into 22 points. Moreover, Washington was incapable of guarding
the pick and roll tonight as Saric frequently took advantage of mismatches as a scorer and
distributor. Finally, the current No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference did not take advantage of
their season-high in free throw attempts, 40, by missing nine of them. Washingtons comeback
came four point short with 22.9 seconds to play and there are a handful of areas they will look
back on and regret.

It is popular to pick on the bench and that can easily be the case tonight as they shot a miserable
3 of 15, 20 percent, from the field including 1 of 4 free throw shooting from Ian Mahinmi, who
did not play in the second half due to back tightness per Scott Brooks after the game. However,
Washington did not get much help from the non-House of Guard players either. Wall and
Beal combined for 69 points on 23 of 46 shooting, 16 assists, and 12 rebounds. Morris only
played 27 minutes due to foul trouble and the duo of Porter and Gortat shot just 6 of 19 from the
field for 18 points. The Wizards are best when everyone is scoring the rock, but when two or
more starters go cold it will be tough for this team to win given the bench woes.

Remember the last time Washington lost to Philadelphia? It was November 16 and the 2-8
Wizards were written off by many. Since then and before tonights loss, the team was 32-13. Yes,
it is a bad loss that should not have happened, but maybe they take this as a serious wake-up call
and put together another impressive stretch to further help their seeding in the Eastern
Conference playoff picture. Regardless, it is one game out of 82. Sorry to go outside of
basketball, but to quote Aaron Rodgers, R-E-L-A-X.