Stevenson Starship

by Jake Whitacre on Dec 10, 2007 5:17 AM EST in Recaps

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Highest Plus/Minus: Caron Butler & Darius Songaila (+21)
Lowest Plus/Minus: Andray Blatche (-11)

From now on, this man is known as Thomas Stevenson.

Make no mistake about it, DeShawn Stevenson had the game-changing play of the night. After playing down to the Nets level for the first half and the start of the second, the Wizards were finally starting to put a little run together to narrow the gap. Enter Stevenson:

Sure he got a tech afterwards (not the first time that's ever happened) but I think the spark and emotional lift that it gave the team was worth the foul shot and possession. It didn't hurt that Stevenson hit a three on the next possession either. After Stevenson posterization of RJ, The Wizards had all the momentum on their side and it showed the rest of the game.

The biggest benefactor of the mo' was Caron Butler who simply took over in the fourth quarter to put the game away. At one point in the quarter he singlehandedly had a 10-1 run that put the game out of reach. The 10 points he had during that spurt were more than Richard Jefferson had the entire game. I mention that because RJ came into the game 3rd in the NBA in scoring and the Wizards had a great plan defensively to keep him from being a factor (yes, you heard me right). The Wizards essentially forced New Jersey to beat them with just Kidd and Carter, and they simply could not do it. The two of them can keep it close for a while, but they need Jefferson more now than ever to provide offense and without him tonight they just couldn't keep up with them at the end.

This was a good win for the Wizards considering The F3 (Blatche, Young, and McGuire) was held in check all night and they were outshout from the field by over seven percent. All that's left now is to hope that Songaila (who had a great game last night) isn't too sore and that he'll be ready for Tuesday's game.

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Comments

What I got from the game is...

...that we actually have a bench. Even though the usual suspects (Blatche and Young) didn't really produce, we still had players step up, especially Songaila (ok, DeShawn had that awesome dunk that made me wake up my roommate upstairs, but he's technically a starter).

He's kinda been invisible for a while, but he showed that he's pretty much better than any of the Nets' big men (not that that's saying much). He played great defense, looked good on the offensive end and hustled his ass off. He deserves some dap, here.

The other thing was Caron. This was the first time this year that I saw him get pissed and say "We are NOT losing this game." He kinda stunk it up (at least offensively) in the first half, but he was incredible in the second. When he's agressive he can play at a ridiculous level. We need to see more of that attitude while Gil's out.

Now if someone can tell me what the hell "The F3" means...

The Washington Wizards: providing career scoring nights for unknown opposing bench players since 2004.

by mamemimo on Dec 10, 2007 9:40 AM EST reply actions

The F3 = The Future 3

Not the most creative thing ever, but anything is better than "The Big 3"

Bullets Forever: Your place for the very latest in Wizards news and PhD-level analysis.

by Jake Whitacre on Dec 10, 2007 11:01 AM EST up reply actions

Hook it up....

Thanks for hooking up the Stevenson dunk clips.

F3 = Future Three -- after the Big Three of course.

I don't think DeShawn wouldn've been T-d up if he didn't look right in R-Jeff's direction.

Boy, the lady Ref didn't even hesitate...almost like she was conditioned to give a T after a Monster dunk like that.

www.truthaboutit.net

by Kyle Weidie on Dec 10, 2007 10:43 AM EST reply actions

Yeah

I really didn't see what got Stevenson the T there, worse stuff has been done. Then again, they weren't mic'd up so they might have said something but if he did, I didn't see it.

Bullets Forever: Your place for the very latest in Wizards news and PhD-level analysis.

by Jake Whitacre on Dec 10, 2007 11:49 AM EST up reply actions

Dime Smack

Just joined the forum here after a few months of dropping by for Wiz content.

Don't know if anyone here reads the Dime Smack blog over on Fox Sports, but they do a daily round up of all the games for the night before, so it's good for a basketball/internet junkie like myself. They had an interesting bit of commentary of Andray. Funny enough, it questions Eddie's substitution patterns, something that Bullets Forever has been giving him kinder marks on as of late:

"What is Eddie Jordan doing with Andray Blatche? One game after he was Washington's best player on the floor against the Suns, Blatche only saw eight minutes last night. If they're trying to build something with this kid, there needs to be more consistency ..."

by ciscovaras on Dec 10, 2007 11:05 AM EST reply actions

Welcome to the site!

I also saw that, and I agree with their point that Eddie needs to be more consistent with his minutes, but that goes both ways. If Eddie is going to give Andray consistent minutes then Andray has to in turn play consistently, which he didn't do while he was in there last night. If I was a betting man, I'd say that Eddie probably originally intended to get Andray some time in the second half to redeem himself, but Songaila was really getting it done at center so Blatche stayed on the bench. It can be infuriating at times how Eddie uses his lineups, but I think he got it right last night.

Bullets Forever: Your place for the very latest in Wizards news and PhD-level analysis.

by Jake Whitacre on Dec 10, 2007 12:08 PM EST up reply actions

The Beard

Not only does it make him look crazy, but it keeps defenders off of him to enable his posterizability.

svpstyle.com

by ScottVanPeltStyle on Dec 10, 2007 11:37 AM EST reply actions

All DSS needs now are crazy goggles

Wouldn't the combo look awesome/fearsome?

by crucifictorious on Dec 10, 2007 1:08 PM EST up reply actions

Hell yeah!

Fit DeShawn with some REC SPECS! I can only dream of the hilarity at Wizznutzz if this were to come to pass.

"Now, obviously individual production does not unilaterally equal better team production, but there's a high level of causation."

by Vanilla Gorilla on Dec 10, 2007 1:13 PM EST up reply actions

funny

i'd like to see the whole team come out in rec specs for a game.

it's a long season. why not?

by DarrellWalkerFan on Dec 10, 2007 1:28 PM EST up reply actions

Intimidation

Since Jahidi left, we haven't really had an intimidator on this team. A squad full of REC SPECS, now that would throw some fear into the rest of the NBA and result in a 30-game win streak.

All we would need after that is to bring back Tyrone Nesby!

"Now, obviously individual production does not unilaterally equal better team production, but there's a high level of causation."

by Vanilla Gorilla on Dec 10, 2007 1:42 PM EST up reply actions

Rec Spec Power

When you talk about Rec Specs, the three players that jump out the most are:

James Worhty
Kurt Rambis
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Combined they have 13 championships among them. Coincidence? Doubt it.

Bullets Forever: Your place for the very latest in Wizards news and PhD-level analysis.

by Jake Whitacre on Dec 10, 2007 2:22 PM EST up reply actions

Don't forget Horace Grant

There's another 3

You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.

by Mike Prada on Dec 10, 2007 2:32 PM EST up reply actions

Blatche's minutes

Blatche's minutes in the first half coincided with the Nets 12-0 run (or whatever it turned out to be). I'm a big Blatche fan and even I was saying, "Put Haywood back in!".

by hotplate on Dec 10, 2007 12:23 PM EST reply actions

I agree with this

Hard to blame Eddie when Blatche was so ineffective out there.

I think in the past, the problem was that Blatche needed consistent minutes to develop, not necessarily 30 minutes a night every night. He would play a lot one game last year and then needlessly stay on the bench in the next. This year, he at least has a defined role, with a fairly steady diet of minutes. That's really what I (and I think a lot of others here) was hoping for.

You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.

by Mike Prada on Dec 10, 2007 2:32 PM EST up reply actions

Was at the game last night......

Blatche was not playing that great while he was in there so I agree with hotplate and jakethesnake that Eddie actually made the right call in using Haywood and Songalia last night.
Haywood continues to impress me. It's hard to believe this is the same guy from last year that was such a dissapointment.
Ken Griffey, Jr. was at the game last night as was Domique Dawes. Wonder what he was doing in town.
it was Kid's Day and they had a children's dance team do a choreographed dance to "U Can't Touch This" that was hyterical. They had every MC Hammer move perfect. I hope someone YouTubes it.

by LoDawg31 on Dec 10, 2007 2:20 PM EST reply actions