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Magical Pixels, Wizards vs. Bucks: A role reversal in Milwaukee?

Sure, the Wizards nearly blew a huge lead in what would have been an embarrassing loss to the NBA's worst team. But isn't that so much better than being the team that gets blown out before saving face at the end?

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Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports

BNIE hit on the proper tone and narrative in his recap of last night's 114-107 victory over the Bucks -- after building a big lead, the Wizards nearly collapsed before holding on in the closing minutes thanks to Bradley Beal. Heroics aside, nearly squandering a 28-point lead is unacceptable.

But allow me, for a moment, to play devil's advocate: How many times in recent years have the Wizards found themselves in a 20-plus point deficit, only to climb back and make the final score semi-respectable once the opponent inevitably throttled down? Invariably, we here at BF have said, "Don't be fooled, this game wasn't as close as the final score indicates," and proceeded to the tear the Wiz down for an embarrassing performance against a clearly-superior team.

Well, yesterday the Wizards were the clearly-superior team going up against the NBA's worst, and the game played out much like we've all seen before, only with the roles reversed, yes? No? Alright, at least I tried.

Anyway, a win's a win at this point in the season. All we can ask is that the Wizards win the games they should, and last night they won a game they should have. Up next is the Heat on Monday, a game the Wiz should probably lose, but after that they play the Bobcats and Magic, two more should-wins.

A quick playoff seeding update: Washington is now one game behind the Bulls for the fourth seed, two games behind the Raptors for the third , and two games ahead of the Nets. Up 4.5 games to the seventh-seeded Bobcats, the Wizards probably can't fall lower than sixth in the Eastern Conference, so it looks like they'll be playing either Chicago, Toronto or Brooklyn in the first round.

KEY LINKS

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

Home team recaps: Brew Hoop | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (gamersidebar) | Behind The Buck Pass

Game highlights

Postgame interviews: Randy WittmanBradley BealTrevor ArizaJohn WallMartell WebsterDrew Gooden

KEY STATS

7 - Minutes the Wizards went scoreless to begin the third quarter. Technically, it was 7:03, and that was after scoring 75 points in the first half. Ick.

71 - Trevor Ariza's three-point percentage (5-for-7) against the Bucks. Beal may have kept the Wizards afloat in the fourth quarter and saved them in the end, but it was Ariza who once again led Washington offensively with a team-high 28 points on 9-of-12 shooting.

TWEETS OF THE NIGHT

VIDEO/GIF OF THE NIGHT

Let's go with Mike's exquisite breakdown of Beal's back-breaking three.

Martell Webster deserves an honorable mention for this slam, as do John Wall and Marcin Gortat for their delighted reactions.

GAMETHREAD COMMENT OF THE NIGHT

Gt_comment

GAMETHREAD ROLLCALL

# Commenter # Comments
1 qthaballa 103
2 HailSkinz 87
3 Wall_Hopeful 85
4 TheBackCourt 61
5 lobster11 48
6 jarem 47
7 KurisuDevil 44
8 ZonkerBL 41
9 LRJ 29
10 ryanwadams 27
11 wad0cash 26
12 Inside Job 20
13 richkam14 19
14 do.itch.big 18
15 SladeKillah 17
16 DCKRS 15
17 ts35 15
18 UNOIMRITE 13
19 John Wall Stan 9
20 Izzy.Bae 9
21 capital city banana smushers 8
22 DavidDunn 7
23 freshcat 7
24 DCrez 7
25 Yeti60 7
26 thewiz06 6
27 WizardFan 5
28 novadada 4
29 abala 3
30 RCpige 3
31 Kend3zy 3
32 Verycooldude9 3
33 Andrew_Lew 2
34 forthepeople 2
35 ATrueNigerian 2
36 Mandark 2
37 The Hoops Guru 2
38 ThePGPhenomenon 2
39 MC-Sneaks 2
40 horatius 1
41 Mike Prada 1
42 t0Shihiro 1
43 Baird15 1
44 Hands11 1
45 Brooklyn Wiz 1
46 spotless 1
47 Ricky McFly 1
48 bmmoore7 1
49 elliotlevy2 1
50 djnnnou 1