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NBA Standings: Wizards gain ground on Bulls with win

Today's Wake-Up Call takes a look at where the Wizards stand after Wednesday's action, the start of the #FeedMarcin movement, and arguably Kevin Seraphin's best play of the season.

By Jake Whitacre
Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

1. The race for the three seed gets more interesting

As expected, the Wizards beat the 76ers and the Raptors took care of business in Minnesota last night. But the Bulls didn't keep pace, losing to the Bucks 95-91.

That means the Bulls and Raptors are both 45-30 with seven games to go. As the division winner, Toronto holds the tiebreaker over Chicago for the third seed, even though the Bulls have a better record head-to-head. So if the playoffs started today, we'd be looking at Bulls-Wizards again.

All three teams are back in action on Friday with winnable games. The Wizards host the Knicks, the Raptors are in Brooklyn, and the Bulls are hosting the Pistons.

2. The #FeedMarcin movement begins

As you may have heard, Marcin Gortat got a little sassy after his big performance in Wednesday's win, via the Washington Post:

Coach Randy Wittman, point guard John Wall, and shooting guard Bradley Beal all agreed that Gortat’s offensive prowess – he scored 23 points on 10 of 11 shooting along with 14 rebounds – was predicated on his willingness to dive to the basket off pick-and-rolls and his ability to finish at the rim. Gortat concurred that he is at his best rolling to the basket off screens, but the center emphasized he didn’t play any differently than he usually does.

"They were passing me the ball," Gortat said bluntly. "I was doing the same thing I’m doing every single game and they were just passing the game."

Nick will have some more thoughts on this later, but here's a couple quick stats for you if you're looking to argue Gortat should get more shots. The Wizards are 20-13 when Gortat attempts 10 shots or more. They're 22-20 when he takes 9 shots or less.

As you'd expect, #FeedMarcin is starting to become a thing on Twitter.

3. Best KSlife moment of the year?

Look, I loved the poetic justice of Seraphin's block on Dion Waiters early in the season, but this was his best play of the season. The degree of difficulty dunking on Nerlens Noel is too much to ignore.