John Wall Falls, John Wall Returns, John Wall Loses

The Memphis Grizzlies and new player Tayshaun Prince defeated the Washington Wizards on Friday night in Memphis.  John Wall left the game with an injury scare but returned to action.

Late in the first half, John Wall went up for a layup and seemed to hit his shoulder on another player.  He landed on his feet, arm limp, and he grabbed his arm as he fell to the ground in serious pain.  Wall's teeth were grinding and his feet were spazzing out.  It looked bad.  He was escorted to the locker room where initial reports are "sprained shoulder".

But Wall came back out after the half and returned to the game, looking to be fine.  Although late in the 4th quarter with the Wizards starting to collapse, Wall remained on the bench until the final 3 minutes, after the game was basically over.

Prince finished with 14 points for the Griz including hitting some backbreaking shots in the 4th quarter to help put away the Wizards.

The Wizards offense was non-existant and with John Wall unable to score on his own, the Wizards didn't really have an identity.  Okafor ended up taking (and bricking) shots in the clutch moments and the Wizards were having trouble getting decent shots the whole game.

Nene was the only Wizards player to finish in double figures, scoring 14 points.  Other than that, there isn't much to say.  The team has 0 depth and when one of their players goes down the entire team collapses and some of the bad body language started to show up again.

Next up for the Wiz tomorrow night against the Spurs...not good...

Bradley Beal Belly Flops On Floor, Gets Up Fine

I thought that Beal was dead after this attempted layup gone wrong.  A Denver Nuggets player fouls the airborn Bradley Beal who falls parallel to the ground from a few feet in the air, landing directly on his stomach flat like a belly flop.  It looked terrible, but Beal stayed in the game and hit the foul shots.

He still looked shaken up while playing so hopefully nothing gets more sore overnight.

John Wall Returns, Verizon Empty, Guy Sleeps

Not exactly the most excited the Verizon Center and Wizards fans have been, in fact it was a little sad...but John Wall was back! (Blame the Ravens game & the NFL playoffs)

After months and months of waiting, the Washington Wizards finally welcomed back John Wall to the lineup on Saturday night at Verizon.  Wall was not in the starting lineup, and entered the game with just under 5 minutes remaining in the first quarter.  For the first seven minutes of the game, fans had their eyes fixated on the guy in the #2 warm-ups, anxiously awaiting the hand gesture from Randy Wittman that signaled John Wall to check into his first game since April of 2012.

The Verizon Center was extremely empty on Saturday night despite the fans knowing of Wall's return for several days in advance.  On StubHub at the time of the game tickets could be purchased for as low as $10 a seat.

But that didn't stop the fans that did attend from giving Wall an extended standing ovation, sparking life into a once dead Washington Wizards fanbase.  Wall acknowledged the crowd with a little salute.  Here is what it looked like and sounded like from the rafters:

Wall missed his first shot attempt, an elbow jumper, and scored his first point of the season on a foul shot.  Shortly after getting on the floor, Wall dished a nice pass to rookie Bradley Beal who threw down the monster jam electrifying the Verizon Center.  Wall gave a JaVale McGee salute to the crowd as he ran back on defense.

Wall's 14 points, 4 assists, and all around presence helped lead the Wizards to their second consecutive win.  (Read the game recap here)  It was more exciting than this guy would lead you to believe.

Wizards Win "Streak" Ends at One

By Jeremy Batka @EastCoastAssn


Wizards fans were hoping their team could do something in Atlanta that they couldn't do in New York, win their second game in a row. Josh Smith and company had other plans though as the Hawks handled Washington 104-95.

The Wizards battled late in the third quarter to make this a game and at one point in the second half they trailed by only two. But once again they were unable to complete the comeback and dig themselves out of an 18 point hole.

Kevin Seraphin lead the Wizards with 19 points on his birthday, he also added 7 rebounds and for a few stretches in the second half his post game actually looked impressive. He also boasted a new hair cut that looked..... interesting, and that's being kind.

Another positive for the Wizards was Bradley Beal's play in the third quarter. Beal had 14 of his 18 in the third and got in a pretty good rhythm with his long range shot. Unfortunately though outside of the third Beal looked like a rookie who is struggling with the transition to the NBA.

Martell Webster made the start for the injured Trevor Ariza and the Wizards offense struggled, scoring only 19 in the first quarter. Webster also posted a -21 rating tonight, by the far the worst on the team.

Jeff Teague scored 12 of his 19 in the first half and defensively Washington could do nothing to contain him. The former Wizard, DeShawn "Can't see me" Stevenson also had a big night, he had 15 points all coming from beyond the arc. You think the Wizards defense would have remembered he liked to shoot the trey but then you'd be giving them too much credit.

Josh Smith led the hawks with 23 points including a three pointer to put Atlanta up six and seal the win with just over two minutes. For some reason though Buckhantz didn't pull out the "DAGGER" call. Maybe he's used to watching this team fail in many, many different ways.