The word is "finish": Hawks 102, Wizards 98

Box Score
Game Flow
Post Recap
Times Recap
Truth is glazed and the Wizards are basted
Peachtree Hoops

Highest Plus/Minus: Antawn Jamison (+14 in 37:35)
Lowest Plus/Minus: Juan Dixon (-16 in 7:00)
Best Five Man Unit: Antonio Daniels, Nick Young, Antawn Jamison, Darius Songaila, Andray Blatche (+4 for the start of the 4^th quarter)
Worst Five Man Unit: Dee Brown, DeShawn Stevenson, Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison, JaVale McGee (-9 to start the game)

Four factors:

Last night's game more or less followed the script that we've seen far too often this season: Wizards find themselves in a early hole at the end of the first quarter, start to make a comeback in the second, struggle at the start of the third, make another comeback to get close and then they can't finish at the end.  I think this quote from the Wizards Insider recap really says it all:

Well, as a Wiz vet said to me a few minutes ago in the locker room: "Same old (stuff)."

Obviously, there's been a lot of tough losses this season and you can see that it's starting to wear on some of the players.  The key right now is to focus on execution and keep things upbeat, because the last thing we need right now is for the players to start thinking beforehand that they're going to mess things up late in the game.  The last thing a 2-12 team needs is self-fulfilling prophecy working against them.

Other thoughts from last night's game:

• At this point, we all know what Darius can and can't do as a player.  We know he's not going to get a bunch of blocks or dunks, but he can make some shots and he work well within the frame of the offense.  Last night he did a good job of playing to his strenghts.  Other than Andray Blatche, Darius has benefited the most from the coaching change, in this blogger's opinion.

• I admire the thought of Andray to go and use his long arms to try and poke the ball away from the other team when they grab a defensive rebound, but he really needs to stop doing it.  He's gotten way more fouls doing that than he has steals.
• There are three ways to get open three point shots in the NBA:
  • Work the ball around, force the defense to over-commit and leave a man open beyond the arc.
    
  • Play against the Wizards.
  • Be DeShawn Stevenson.  Teams will give you all the space you want to shoot a three when you're only making 26.9% of them.
    
• Antonio Daniels hit two three pointers last night!  The last time AD made two triples in the same game was November 24, 2007.  The rest of Daniels' game was also solid, I don't think it will be long until we see him back in the starting lineup.
• The rebounding was very good last night.  I know the Hawks were without Josh Smith and Zaza Pachulia, but the Wizards didn't get any rebounds from JaVale McGee, Dominic McGuire, or Etan Thomas and they still managed to win the rebounding battle.  I'll take it.
• To be honest, I didn't know a whole lot lot about Solomon Jones before tonight's game, but I was impressed with his performance tonight.  Getting 5 blocks in 15 minutes has a way of getting people to notice you.
• I believe the Wizards have benefitted more from technicals from players in street clothes than any other team this season.  Joey Dorsey got T'd up in that infamous Summer League game in July and Josh Smith got a tech last night for arguing from the bench.  At least one thing has been going our way this season.