The season is finally here, after a long and eventful off-season the Washington Wizards are returning to action. The season opener will be against the Dallas Mavericks, away.

Game Info

When: Wednesday, Oct. 23 at 8:30 p.m. ET

Where: American Airlines Center in Dallas, TX

How to watch: NBC Sports Washington

Injury Report

Wizards: Isaiah Thomas (out), C.J. Miles (Day-to-Day), Troy Brown Jr (Day-to-Day)

Mavericks: Ryan Broekhoff, Dorian Finney-Smith, Seth Curry, and Dwight Powell are all listed as Day-to-Day.

Pregame notes

The Wizards are finally going to unveil their “Washington U.” roster.

Much has been said about the Wizards summer moves, the change in culture and Beal’s uncertain future in the team. Now, however, it’s finally time to play ball.

Will the Wizards tank through the season or surprise all the pundits? Much will depend on how the team goes through the first 12 games in the next month including tough matchups (Dallas, San Antonio x 2, Houston, OKC, Boston, Minnesota, Detroit and Indiana on the one hand, and Cleveland and Orlando on the other hand). On paper, anything worse than a 4-8 start would be consistent with expectations, so expect any better start to come with an upbeat reception while a 2-10 or worse start and fans will start asking questions.

In this season opener against the much anticipated “Lucazingis duo” perhaps the tandem of the future of the league, the lights will shine bright on Dallas and its much revamped roster that is finally carrying a ton of expectations to at the very least have a winning record this year. So, this is a must win for Dallas, on their home court.

Flashback: Beal’s all-time poster dunk

In last year’s match-up Beal led the Wizards to a nice win, the most memorable moment being his poster dunk on 7-foot-2 Salah Mejri (who, if you were wondering, has since played for a month in China for the Liaoning Flying Leopards and now is on the roster of Real Madrid in Spain). Have to watch this one over and over again. The possession starts with typical Jabari 3-pointer and non-chalant hanging around not chasing the rebound, typical Troy Brown, Jr. coming out of nowhere and grabbing the offensive board, and then Beal slicing through the defense with the poster DUNK and more importantly, the PANDA STAREDOWN: