The Washington Wizards needed a win in the worst way last night to bounce back from their most humiliating loss of the season, so Coach Eddie Jordan wasn't messing around. With about seven minutes left, the Wizards had a double-digit lead and Jordan called on starting guards Gilbert Arenas and Larry Hughes to re-enter the game and finish off the expansion Charlotte Bobcats.
But when reserve guard Juan Dixon knocked down a three-pointer, Arenas raised his eyebrows and smiled as he glanced at Jordan on the bench. "I looked at him like, I think they've got it," Arenas said. Jordan pulled back Arenas and Hughes from the scorers' table.
Wizards guard Juan Dixon, center, drives between Bobcat defenders in Washington's 106-87 win.
(Jonathan Newton - The Washington Post)
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With an 18-point lead, Jordan didn't necessarily need them anymore. A night after he sat his starters for most of the final period of a 35-point loss in Minnesota, Jordan gave them a rest for a different reason last night -- they had done enough to lead the Wizards to a 106-87 victory at MCI Center.
Hughes scored a game-high 20 points and Arenas had 17 for the Wizards, who had six players score in double figures, including all five starters. After playing their past five games on the road, the Wizards (15-11) returned home to shoot a season-high 55 percent (40 of 73) while handing the Bobcats their worst loss in franchise history.
"We were away for a long time," Hughes said. "It's good to be back. It certainly wasn't our best basketball, but it was far from our worst."
The Wizards only needed to look back one game for that, when they played so poorly against the Timberwolves that forward Antawn Jamison said he didn't recognize the team on the floor. Jamison saw a much more familiar group, which established an inside game early -- scoring 60 points in the lane -- and outscored the Bobcats 20-3 in fast-break points. "Once they get their half-court game working, with their uptempo fast break game, they're pretty much unstoppable," Bobcats forward Gerald Wallace said.
The Wizards' starting front court of Jamison, center Brendan Haywood and forward Jared Jeffries combined to score just 15 points against the Timberwolves. They scored 44 against the Bobcats, with Jeffries matching his career high with 15 points. The Wizards are 6-0 this season when he scores in double figures. "Whenever I can play effective, it gives our team a little something," Jeffries said. "I hope I can continue to do that."
Washington also improved to 10-1 when it holds opponents under 100 points and 11-4 when it scores at least 100.
"We were unselfish, had balanced scoring and we played with energy," Jamison said after scoring 15 points. "For us to come back and find a way to get it done and play with the energy that we showed out there is a good sign from a team that suffered a devastating loss the night before."
The night would've been better had forward Kwame Brown not suffered his latest setback. Brown -- who missed the first 12 games of the season after having surgery to repair a broken bone in his right foot in August -- left the game after just seven minutes with a strained right ankle tendon. Brown won't practice today. "He's a big guy with a foot injury," Jordan said. "It's hard to come back."
Emeka Okafor recorded his 16th consecutive double-double for the Bobcats -- breaking a rookie record held by Shaquille O'Neal -- with 18 points and 11 rebounds. The Bobcats (7-17) dropped to 1-12 on the road and they are 0-8 against Eastern Conference teams on the road.
"We needed to beat Charlotte. With their record we needed to jump on them and take advantage," Haywood said after scoring 14 points. "Teams didn't give us anything last year when we were struggling. It doesn't matter who it is, you've got to play hard against everybody, but you've got to take care of teams you're supposed to beat."
The Wizards' next four opponents -- Detroit, Boston, Atlanta and New Jersey -- have a combined record of 40-64 (.385). The defending champion Pistons, whom the Wizards will play tomorrow at MCI Center, are the only opponent with a winning record Washington will face until a TNT game against the Seattle SuperSonics on Jan. 6.
