Until Wizards Win, There Is No Rivalry

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A Cleveland Blockade

Cleveland routs Washington, 105-88, in Game 6 at Verizon Center to knock the Wizards out of the playoffs for the third straight year.

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Ben Wallace, whose no-holds-barred game I fell in love with in 2004, is now old. The man is 33 in dog years.

Wally Szczerbiak, bless his heart, couldn't take -- or guard -- Gheorghe Muresan off the dribble. Ask Gheorghe. He'll tell you.

Joe Smith gives you energy, but not much else. Daniel Gibson is a nice spot-up shooter, but "Boobie" is no Dell Curry. He's not even Stephen Curry.

The Cavaliers have LeBron and Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who is skilled at 7 feet 3 and occasionally driven when he really feels like playing.

That roster is going to send you packing again? Uh-uh. Can't happen.

"We stopped attacking the basket," Jamison said, lamenting that fact that he and his teammates seemed to forget they had drawn enough fouls to spend the final 7 minutes 42 seconds of the game in the free throw bonus. "We settled for jumpers. I settled for three of them. I thought I had one, but I was leaning a little after that. No excuse. We should've gone inside."

For most of four quarters, Jamison was the best player on the floor. Not LeBron, who piggybacked the Cavs to the NBA Finals a year ago. Not Arenas, the NBA sixth man of the month, who was flat-out flammable in his first playoff appearance in two years, dropping in 12 points in six minutes and shaking anyone whom Cleveland assigned to guard him.

And there was something right about that, because Jamison was the player who carried the banner for the Wizards last season in the playoffs and has been the team's most consistent player, if not the league's most consistent player, for all of this season.

He rebounded, he shot well and he even picked up a technical foul, having a fellow Carolina player's back at the end of the first half. Brendan Haywood, who was very good at times yesterday, scuffled with LeBron, who felt as if the Wizard had prevented him from getting up at midcourt. He came up with an elbow, and Jamison darted across half court as if he were a heavyweight boxer's handler and all hell had broken out in the ring.

It was a good, early sign that the Wizards weren't afraid to scrap, to do what they had to do to not make this a repeat of last season and the season before.

But Washington can't feel good about its 2008 playoff debut. Bottom line: The Wizards have to win this year or else there is no genuine rivalry with Cleveland.

They have a rivalry like the Knicks and Bulls; when Michael Jordan played, the Bulls won every time. When LeBron James plays and does the things he did at the end of the game for Cleveland on Saturday, the Cavaliers have thus far won every time that truly mattered.

James had an unreal dunk off an alley-oop pass from Gibson in the first half, cocking his right arm all the way back -- until it appeared to almost come out of his shoulder -- before slamming the ball through.

The Q went wild with noise, howling more at the replay of the dunk than the actual live play.

Arenas was otherworldly, too, for a while, especially at the end of the first quarter, in which he launched a 30-something-foot shot that caught all nylon.

It took you back to 2006, dueling superstars, putting it into overdrive, giving the masses what they wanted.

But the ending was all too familiar. The first game does not make a series, but the Wizards would do themselves a big favor, emotionally and psychologically, by winning Game 2 and finding a way to rid themselves of this nettlesome and, thus far, unbeatable first-round foe.