The Washington Wizards stringed together six (6!) wins. True, one of these was the Utah Jazz. Also true, the last five games weren’t against the top tier of the league (Sacramento, New Orleans, Detroit, OKC, Golden State), as the schedule did get easier in mid April. This rematch with the Thunder offers a solid chance to extend the current streak to seven.

Game Info

When: Friday, Apr. 23 at 8 p.m. ET

Where: Chesapeake Energy Arena, Oklahoma City, OK

How to watch: NBC Sports Washington, NBA League Pass

Injury Report

Wizards: Thomas Bryant, Deni Avdija (Out), Rui Hachimura (Day-To-Day)

Nuggets: Josh Hall, Gabriel Deck (Out), Luguentz Dort, Aleksej Pokusevski (Day-To-Day)

Pregame notes

The Wizards want to keep back to winning. Fans? — In a league that incentivizes tanking perhaps the Wizards have found a way to dance on both weddings: make the playoff via the play-ins and pick in the lottery (wait, is that possible?!) The Thunder will do everything they can to lose. The Wizards will probably pick up an easy W here and celebrate 9 W in the last 10 games.

How will the Wizards fare without Deni? — It always sucks when a rookie gets seriously injured. Let’s wish Deni very swift and full recovery. It would be interesting who the coaches will rely on to fill in the 20-30 minutes Deni contributed on most nights.

This game won’t be nationally televised — I wonder how many will even tune in to it locally. If you have something better to do on Friday night, please go ahead.

Flashback: Didn’t these teams just play each other?

Just a couple days ago when the two teams met, Russ played for 39 minutes (workload management anybody?) and delivered 8 turnovers, 13 points and a ton (17) of assists. Beal has his usual meal... of the 30 points. And the Wiz squeezed a win against a gritty OKC team. Here are the highlights: