Slumping Wizards Have a Long Way to Go

Four-Game Swing Out West Looms Before the Break

The all-star break can't arrive fast enough for the slumping Washington Wizards, who matched a season-long five-game losing streak with a home loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday night.

However, before the Wizards have a chance to catch some rest and, perhaps, get some of their key players back from injury, they will embark on a challenging four-game road trip that opens tonight in Denver.

The trip continues with games at Phoenix (Sunday night) and Golden State (Monday night) before wrapping up in Los Angeles with a game against the Clippers on Wednesday.

The Wizards (24-24) may be without all-star Caron Butler tonight against Denver (29-19) after the forward aggravated the left hip injury that forced him to miss three games last week.

Butler sat out Wednesday's loss to the Spurs and is officially listed as "day-to-day" but was experiencing severe discomfort following Tuesday's loss in Philadelphia. The team athletic trainer and Butler could decide he should rest until the hip heals, although the Wizards are 1-4 without him.

In the locker room after Wednesday's game, several players talked about playing without Butler as if it were inevitable.

"We are playing without Caron for a couple of games but we have enough to get it done," all-star forward Antawn Jamison said. "We realize the importance of these next four games before we break and get ready for the second half of the season."

After missing two games against Toronto last week and another against Utah, Butler returned to face his old team, the Los Angeles Lakers, on Sunday and played 39 minutes after not going through a full practice all week.

If Butler misses more games, his teammates will have to find a way to snap the losing streak on their own, and many of them saw positive signs in Wednesday's competitive 85-77 loss to the defending champion Spurs.

The Wizards led 58-57 entering the fourth quarter and received a strong effort from Andray Blatche, who started for Butler and finished with 16 points, a career-high 15 rebounds and 2 blocks.

"We played better, and even though the outcome wasn't what we wanted, we know that if we play like we did [Wednesday night], we can win some games," reserve guard Roger Mason Jr. said. "We can be encouraged by that."

After falling to 0-5 with an ugly 118-92 home loss to Denver on Nov. 9, the Wizards bounced back to win the next six games. However, Butler was the team's leading scorer in three of those games and injured guard Gilbert Arenas was in the lineup for the first three. Arenas plans to return to game action sometime after the all-star break.

Experiencing success on the trip -- and without Butler, success might be going 2-2 -- could hinge on the contributions of players such as Blatche, Mason, Darius Songaila and rookies Nick Young, Oleksiy Pecherov and Dominic McGuire.

Blatche has been particularly affective as a starter. In five games as a starter (Blatche made one start for Butler on Dec. 22 when Butler was out with sprained ankles), the third-year forward-center has averaged 15.6 points, 11.2 rebounds and 3 blocks in 34.5 minutes while shooting 50 percent.

In 43 games as a substitute, Blatche has averaged 5.8 points, 4.4 rebounds and 1.4 blocks in 17.4 minutes while shooting 45.7 percent.

"Every time he plays, you see him improve and you see him really gain understanding of what he's doing out there," Jamison said. "When you have an all-star like Caron out, you have to find a way to pick up that slack so the most important thing for him to understand is that we need him and I'm glad to see him going out there and producing."

If there is a silver lining in the recent rough patch, it is located in the Eastern Conference standings. The Wizards are in sixth place, 1 1/2 games ahead of seventh-place Atlanta and 4 1/2 games ahead of eighth-place New Jersey, so the losing skid hasn't severely damaged the team's playoff hopes.

"We have enough in this locker room to win games, we've proven that," point guard Antonio Daniels said. "And we knew that through the course of a season, we would come to a point like this, where we'd lose a few games in a row. Now, it's character time."