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Magical Pixels, Wizards vs. Heat: Washington routs shorthanded Miami, but race for 6th seed continues

Well, the Wizards did their part by steamrolling the indifferent Heat, but the stupid Hawks didn't hold up their end of the bargain.

By Jeff Newman
Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

After running all over a Heat team that was resting LeBron James and Chris Bosh for the playoffs, the Wizards seemed to have secured the sixth seed Monday when the Hawks took a 15-point lead in the second half of their game against the seventh-place Bobcats.

Then Atlanta got outscored 30-13 in the fourth quarter, losing at the buzzer on a crazy shot by Chris Douglas-Roberts, and now the Wizards need to finish the regular season with a victory over the Celtics to guarantee the sixth seed.

The Bobcats need to beat the Bulls, who are still vying with Toronto for the third seed, to have any shot of leapfrogging Washington, so even if the Wizards lose to Boston, there's a decent chance they'll remain at No. 6, but let's not let it come to that, eh? Just take care of business against the Celts, and we don't have to play the Heat with LeBron and Bosh. Shoot, if the Wiz win, and the Nets lose their last two against the Knicks and Cavs (yeah, not going to happen), they could still get the fifth seed.

As for Monday's game, the Wizards won 114-93 despite John Wall scoring only four points. Don't let that point total fool you; Wall had a very good game, racking up 13 assists in only 24 minutes against a Heat team that seemed disinterested in doing much of anything. Andre Miller picked up right where Wall left off, handing out nine assists in 22 minutes of floor time.

Trevor Ariza scored a game-high 25 points on 10-of-13 shooting, Nene was a beast off the bench with 18 points in 24 minutes, and Bradley Beal had an efficient 15 points on nine shots to go with five assists. Marcin Gortat scored 10 points and grabbed 13 rebounds, while Al Harrington chipped in 16 points on 4-of-6 shooting from three.

My only complaint was that Nene was still on the court late in the fourth quarter with the game well in-hand. I understand wanting to get the Big Brazilian conditioned for the playoffs, but the last thing you need is for him to get hurt again playing meaningless regular season minutes. Nene himself didn't seem too happy with his playing time, either (see below).

KEY LINKS

Home team recaps: BF StoryStream | Washington Post | AP | CSN Washington (recap, sidebar) | Wiz of Awes | DC Pro Sports Report | District Sports Page | Wizards.com | Monumental Network (recap, playoff scenarios)

Road team recaps: Hot Hot Hoops | Miami Herald (gamer, sidebar) | South Florida Sun Sentinel (gamer, sidebar) | Heat Index (grades, sidebar) | All U Can Heat | WaPo JReid column

Game highlights

Postgame interviews: Randy Wittman | John Wall | Trevor Ariza | Bradley Beal | Nene | Marcin Gortat

KEY STATS

59 - Washington's shooting percentage against Miami. This pretty much explains why the Wiz won.

78 - Percentage of Wizards' field goals against the Heat that were assisted (36 assists on 46 field goals). This pretty much explains why Washington shot 59 percent.

TWEETS OF THE NIGHT

First, a warning: For those of you who watch Game of Thrones but haven't seen this past Sunday's episode yet, a) what the hell are you doing with your life??, and b) you may want to stop here if you live under a rock and haven't heard what happened, because an itty bitty/major SPOILER awaits below.

For the rest of you, enjoy.

VIDEO/GIF OF THE NIGHT

Andre Miller has rendered Phil Chenier incredulous. "Oh no. Oh no. No he didn't."

If the Redskins end up trading Kirk Cousins, maybe they should consider signing Miller to backup Robert Griffin III.

GAMETHREAD COMMENT OF THE NIGHT

Yeah baby, yeah!!

Gt_comment

GAMETHREAD ROLLCALL

# Commenter # Comments
1 qthaballa 98
2 Ottoman-Empire 73
3 Wall_Hopeful 64
4 TheBackCourt 47
5 BealMVP4ever 32
6 Baird15 31
7 LRJ 27
8 Bradley_B3al 23
9 Gators2015_BB3 22
10 thewiz06 22
11 Yeti60 21
12 Banode 20
13 jarem 18
14 NewCavsfan 18
15 DCrez 17
16 MC-Sneaks 17
17 ryanwadams 16
18 novadada 16
19 the new Bradfather 11
20 abala 10
21 ExcuseMeDearSir 7
22 rotosportsbook 7
23 hambonejackson 7
24 John Wall Stan 4
25 George Templeton 4
26 Hands11 4
27 ts35 4
28 jaffejoe 3
29 Rook6980 3
30 pplchamp 3
31 terpsDC 3
32 Mandark 3
33 gavalon55 3
34 Wiz-kid 3
35 sublime1983 2
36 Jormond Wall 2
37 obeast 2
38 mikeymoney 1
39 redterp02 1
40 elliotlevy2 1
41 jrhooo 1
42 Craig_ 1
43 Terping 1
44 kerrakpo 1
45 Akbar264 1
46 g_andal16 1
47 nesby8 1
48 benofficial202 1
49 WizADeveryday 1
50 jsuh0 1

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