There’s no need for the Wizards’ pre game antics for the Celtics tonight to be public

After the Wizards’ win against the Hornets on Monday night, Kelly Oubre said something interesting to Candace Buckner of The Washington Post:

That’s right. The Wizards will wear all black to Verizon Center before today’s game against the Celtics because they want the game to be a “funeral” for the visitors.

That idea originated in 2013 when then-Knicks forward Kenyon Martin suggested that before Game 5 of a first round playoff series against the Celtics, who had a different core at the time. The Knicks went on to lose Game 5 of that series though they did win the series. But either way, the stunt wasn’t well-received by the Knicks coaches let alone the Celtics.

To be fair to Oubre, he apparently was the first to talk about the idea publicly. But Bradley Beal spearheaded the idea, and John Wall’s on board with it.

There are two sides to look at this.

On the one hand, it’s great to see the solidarity of the team. The Wizards are playing their best basketball over the last two months and won 13 straight home games. Wizards fans are now starting to feel pretty good considering that their first 10 games were a disaster.

But on the other, the Wizards are fanning the flames against a team who doesn’t like them. The Celtics have won five of their last six games against the Wizards in the last two seasons with most of the same players.

And finally, Wall and Beal say that they want a clean game. But both teams have been involved in chippiness over the last two seasons and numerous confrontations. I expect this game to be the same whether they said they planned to say these things or not.

Some of you may like seeing the solidarity. I do too in a vacuum. However, I don’t see any need to go public about what they plan to wear tonight or whether the team wants this game to be the Celtics’ “funeral.”