A Four-Gone Conclusion
James Scores 31 Points As Cavs End Wizards' Season With a Sweep

By Ivan Carter
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Even as the Washington Wizards built second- and third-quarter leads and even as the Cleveland Cavaliers played with a nonchalance that may come back to bite them as their playoff journey continues, an air of inevitability hung over Verizon Center last night.

Trailing 3-0 in the best-of-seven series and facing elimination, the undermanned Wizards again played with spunk before breaking down in the fourth quarter and losing, 97-90.

The Cavaliers capped a 4-0 sweep, knocking the Wizards out of the playoffs for the second straight season; they await the winner of the New Jersey Nets-Toronto Raptors series. It was the ninth time in franchise history that a Washington team was swept out of the postseason, and this time it was Cleveland's budding superstar, LeBron James, who held the broom.

James scored a series-high 31 points to go along with 11 rebounds and seven assists, including two in the final minute, and center Zydrunas Ilgauskas scored 10 of his 20 points in the fourth quarter and added 19 rebounds.

James and Ilgauskas essentially ended Washington's season with 33 seconds remaining. Working from the top of the key, James drove, drew the defense and passed to the corner to an open Ilgauskas, who drained a 16-foot jump shot over fellow Lithuanian Darius Songaila.

"At the end of ballgames, I am going to get double-teams, but through the whole series my team has been able to step up and knock down shots," said James, who averaged 27.8 points, 8.5 rebounds and 7.5 assists in the series. "I do not have to win a game by scoring. I just have to control the pace and let the other guys take care of it."

Antawn Jamison did his best to match James and capped a sensational series by scoring 31 points on 12-of-25 shooting. Songaila finished with a career playoff-high 16 points and guard Antonio Daniels finished with 13 points and 12 assists.

During an early stretch of the fourth quarter, Songaila scored eight straight points for the Wizards, and he gave the sold-out Verizon Center crowd some hope when he drove and banked in a running jump hook over Drew Gooden, drawing the Wizards within a point with 1 minute 46 seconds remaining.

After former Wizard Larry Hughes missed a jump shot for Cleveland and Daniels missed a difficult running layup for the Wizards, James drove baseline, drew the defense and dropped a pass to Ilgauskas, whose layup gave the Cavaliers a 91-88 lead with 59 seconds left.

Pressured by Eric Snow at the top of the key, Jamison tried to drive but dribbled the ball off his left foot and it rolled out of bounds, giving Cleveland possession with 51 seconds left.

James then made the game's biggest play by dribbling into the lane, where he was quickly double-teamed before jumping and passing out to Ilgauskas, who was spotted up in the corner. With Songaila running at him, Ilgauskas calmly released a jump shot that hit all net, pushing the Cleveland lead to five with 33 seconds to play.

James made a similar play to ice Cleveland's Game 3 victory by driving and dishing to Sasha Pavlovic, who made a back-breaking three-pointer.

"They hit big shots in the fourth quarter and we didn't," said Daniels, who averaged 11.8 assists during the series. "They took our best shot, our runs, and responded with ones of their own."

The game's final minutes played out in a fashion similar to several close losses suffered by the Wizards since all-stars Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler went down with season-ending injuries in early April.

Competitive in every game but one -- a brutal 33-point home loss to the Chicago Bulls on April 15 -- the Wizards nonetheless went 2-12 after Butler broke a bone in his right hand on April 1.

For the first time all series, the Wizards held a halftime lead last night (47-44), and Jamison and Jarvis Hayes opened the third quarter by making consecutive three-pointers. But Washington missed its next four shots, turned over the ball three times and squandered an opportunity to open up a big lead.

Guard DeShawn Stevenson capped a nightmarish offensive series by missing all eight of his shots and scoring zero points in 22 minutes. Stevenson, a 46.1 percent shooter during the regular season, shot 19.6 percent in the series and made only 3 of 19 three-point attempts.

"It was frustrating for me," Stevenson said. "To make shots all season and then come into the playoffs and want to play at a high level and have that happen is frustrating. I went through a bad shooting slump at the worst time."

Wizards center Brendan Haywood, who did not record a point or a rebound in 10 minutes of action in Game 3, did not get off the bench last night as Coach Eddie Jordan instead turned to Calvin Booth as his first center off the bench.

Haywood has been frustrated by his inconsistent playing time since Jordan replaced him as a starter on April 1. He left the bench area before the buzzer sounded and was the first Wizard out of the locker room. Oddly, the nameplate above Haywood's locker stall already was missing when reporters filed in for postgame comments.

While Haywood's departure suggested that his future as a Wizard could be up in the air, several players lobbied to keep the team's core group together and make another run when everyone returns healthy in the fall.

"Talking to Gilbert and Caron after the game, guys are really focused and ready to get started now," Jamison said. "This organization is going to do everything it can to make us better, but I really think it needs to keep these core guys together because we have an opportunity to do something special."