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Unbelievable. Nothing about that game made any sense, so it's only natural that it ends with Jordan Crawford hitting the 30-foot buzzer beater to give the Wizards the 98-95 win. The Wizards blew a five-point lead with a minute left, gave up the game-tying three in frustrating fashion ... and yet it didn't matter because Crawford hit an incredible shot that only he could make.
I'm still not sure how to make sense of anything that happened in the final few minutes.The Wizards looked to be in good shape up seven with six minutes left, but as is their custom, they made things difficult on themselves. Washington's possessions became stagnant, and the Blazers finally started to solve the Wizards' stifling defense. In particular, Damian Lillard finally came alive with a corner three to cut the lead to two and a shocking righty throwdown on a drive by Wall to cut it to one.
Then, the Wizards looked like they'd pull ahead. First, Nene forced J.J. Hickson to turn it over, brought it up the floor himself and found Webster with a bounce pass for the slam. Then, Wall's gambling on Lillard finally payed off, as he reached around the rookie to poke the ball away and race in for the uncontested slam to give Washington a five-point lead with 55 seconds left.
Of course, it wasn't ever going to be that simple. Lillard scored a layup in about 0.25 seconds to cut the lead to three, and Wall then threw up some air-balled junk. The Blazers didn't call timeout, smartly, and eventually swung the ball to Wesley Matthews in the corner for a three in Crawford's face. Tie game.
Things looked bad. Disaster appeared inevitable. Then, Crawford did his thing, and the game was won.
We'll have much more on this game going forward as soon as we can make sense of it. Until then ....