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Magical Pixels, Wizards vs. Jazz: Washington continues epic .500 trolling

Alright, this ".500?" shtick was cute, but seriously.

Chris Nicoll-USA TODAY Sports

Well, the Washington Wizards done gone and Wizarded some more.

Criminy, this team. One night after one of their better wins of the season, the Wizards rode apathy, poor shot selection and a defense-is-optional mentality to a 104-101 loss to the Utah Jazz. Trevor Ariza scored a team-high 23 points and nailed six of the team's seven three-pointers, but he also jacked up a wild, off-balance three with 11 seconds to play, the shot clock turned off, and Washington trailing, 101-98. The game was pretty much over from there.

Neither starting point guard had a great game, but John Wall got outplayed by rookie Trey Burke. Wall finished with 13 points, four assists and four turnovers on 4-of-14 shooting, while Burke tallied 12 points, eight assists and two turnovers on 4-of-12 shooting (4-of-5 from three). Bradley Beal scored 14 points (5-of-16 shooting) and dished out eight assists, but his minus-12 was worst on the team, and the only negative plus/minus put up by a Washington starter.

The Wizards blew their sixth chance this season at going above .500, but their seventh shot probably won't come for awhile. Washington now travels to play the Warriors and Clippers before coming home to face the Thunder, Trail Blazers and Spurs in consecutive games. Looking at that stretch charitably, the Wizards are probably at best two games under .500 when they play the Cavaliers at home Feb. 7.

So, if there's a silver lining to yesterday's loss, it's that we won't have to deal with the .500 shtick for awhile. Bad news is that the Wizards figure to remain a losing club for at least a couple more weeks. Sad face.

KEY LINKS

Road team recaps: BF StoryStreamWashington PostAP | CSN Washington (recapsidebar) | Wiz of AwesDC Pro Sports ReportWizards.comMonumental NetworkDaily Wizdom

Home team recaps: SLC Dunk | Salt Lake Tribune (gamersidebar) | Deseret News (gamersidebar) | Salt City Hoops

Game highlights

Postgame interviews: Randy WittmanBradley BealMarcin GortatTrevor Ariza

KEY STATS

30 - Combined shooting percentage of John Wall (4-of-14 shooting) and Bradley Beal (5-of-16) against the Jazz.

85 - Enes Kanter's shooting percentage against the Wizards. Kanter scored 24 points in 30 minutes on 11-of-13 shooting. Woof.

34 - Scoring discrepancy between Utah's bench and Washington's. Jazz reserves scored 52 points, while the Wizards' bench totaled 18.

TWEETS OF THE NIGHT

VIDEO/GIF OF THE NIGHT

(H/T @adammcginnis)

GAMETHREAD COMMENT OF THE NIGHT

GAMETHREAD ROLLCALL

# Commenter # Comments
1 qthaballa 81
2 DCrez 73
3 Wall_Hopeful 68
4 JimmyWall 68
5 Craig_ 66
6 souldrummer 65
7 wad0cash 65
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11 Hands11 40
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13 Rice2012 37
14 Singhgidda 37
15 Nickdoggmoneycash 32
16 LRJ 31
17 Banode 29
18 DCeee 26
19 WASwizardsfan671 25
20 17squall 23
21 Gators2015_BB3 23
22 KurisuDevil 19
23 freshcat 16
24 DCKRS 16
25 eeee12 14
26 Perm 14
27 gregjohnson1229 13
28 ATrueNigerian 13
29 John Wall Stan 12
30 KINGWIZ86 9
31 forthepeople 9
32 ts35 8
33 PolishHammer 7
34 DJWiz 7
35 HijackedD 7
36 elliotlevy2 6
37 wync 5
38 Mandark 4
39 RamVA 4
40 ZonkerBL 4
41 Rook6980 3
42 DCON88 3
43 thewiz06 3
44 Mike Berry 3
45 verlierer 3
46 oakhillsteeze 1
47 wizncards 1
48 Nubboi 1
49 jaffejoe 1
50 Kend3zy 1
51 richkam14 1
52 hotplate 1
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54 pack0303 1
55 Gilbert4SpaceJam2 1
56 RCpige 1