A Stumble Instead of the Next Step

But there are no basketball gods. There are great players who knock down those foul shots, and there are exceptional players who don't. Today, he is the latter. And the Bomb That Almost Beat LeBron was just that, a nice memory from a great game but not the defining play. No, because Arenas missed those free throws he gave the opportunity to Damon Jones, who had not played at all in the game until the final sequence.

Ernie Grunfeld has done a magnificent job in a short time. But he and Eddie Jordan know, deep down, the team is still the tin man without a heart, a nice crew but ultimately still a few wrenching postseason losses away from gaining the experience needed to win huge games.

The house that Ernie and Eddie built has a strong foundation, but it was rocked last night in ways that take time to fix.

They shouldn't fret too much. Jordan's Bulls lost games like these before they got to the Finals. Patrick Ewing's Knicks and the Jazz of John Stockton and Malone lost a lot of these games before they made it to the Finals. In an era of musical-chair team-switching by the league's stars, we're not saying the Wizards are guaranteed that kind of progression.

We're saying this kind of pulsating, wild loss makes players see themselves differently. The self-doubt sometimes grows. Late-game execution does not get any easier. You can pile up 60 wins in the regular season, but you lose the big ones and that's what people remember.

They lost a big one, and it will linger. Instead of maybe taking a couple games off Detroit and showing real improvement after advancing to the second round a year ago, now Grunfeld knows there are more growing pains ahead -- and maybe an offseason deal for a bona fide big man if he can pull it off.

It's too bad this great hoop theater is over. Cavs-Wizards was a guilty pleasure, the four-rounder on the undercard of the heavyweight championship. You know neither one of these tomato cans could hold the title, but there's something riveting about two evenly matched pugs trading shots until one drops.

They're good second-round-and-out entertainment. They're both an Elton Brand or a Jermaine O'Neal away from being considered a real contender.

Bottom line: The Cavs and LeBron are now the "It" team in the Eastern Conference, the hot, young collection of players on track for a title in, say, three years. It's the kind of label the Wizards worked so hard to acquire last season, and the label they so dramatically and ruthlessly had taken from them last night -- the last night of their maddening season.