- The Washington Times - Saturday, February 4, 2017

The lulls Saturday night made it look like almost two months of work was about to crack. Washington had won 16 consecutive home games to put together the second-longest home winning streak in organization history. It needed to beat a middling New Orleans Pelicans team to vault the streak to 17 and cue the hype for Monday’s home game against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

A strange fourth quarter replete with a John Wall takeover — again — and tragic offense from the Pelicans produced the 17th consecutive home win despite the head-scratching moments. That sets up Monday’s game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Not shying from the moment when doing his on-court postgame interview for television, Wall declared, “It’s on.” More on that Sunday.

As for Saturday, the Wizards were at times flat. The bench bailed them out before Wall did in the final five minutes. New Orleans abandoned thoughts of ball movement and committed the top sin when playing the Wizards: They turned the ball over early, turned the ball over late.

“At practice, we must’ve said it 20 times,” Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry said. “We cannot turn the ball over against John Wall. He’s a one-man fastbreak. We did at the start of the game, we did it at the end. That’s the result. That’s what you get.”

He was right. Wizards win, 105-91, in large part because New Orleans scored eight points in the fourth quarter.

Washington is 30-20, on an overall seven-game winning streak and in third place in the Eastern Conference, just two games out of the No. 2 seed and four games behind Cleveland.

Three points from Saturday night:

Bench is all right. Thursday night, the bench players were a mess. They reverted to early-season status when tasked with holding things together late in the third quarter and early in the fourth against the Los Angeles Lakers. They couldn’t find good shots and couldn’t get stops that night. Wizards coach Scott Brooks was not pleased. He had to put the starters back into the game 3-4 minutes earlier than usual. Saturday, the bench players were much more efficient. The four-man group of Kelly Oubre, Trey Burke, Jason Smith and Tomas Satoransky went 10-for-15 (66.7 percent) from the floor. Brooks said the bench group “flipped the script” from the other night when they were woeful.

“They wanted to play better,” Brooks said. “Last game, they had a three-minute stretch where they didn’t play as well as they’ve been playing the last couple of months, so it was nice to see that. They were a big part of our win because we were flat, we had nothing going.”

Mahinmi making progress. The Wizards continue to contend center Ian Mahinmi is making progress. Mahinmi has played just 14 minutes this season because of knee problems that began when he needed preseason surgery on his left knee. His right knee became aggravated following the surgery. Eventually, Mahinmi required platelet-rich plasma injections in each knee. He practiced Friday. The Wizards did not shoot around Saturday and are off Sunday. Their next shootaround is slated for Monday morning before the game against the Cavaliers.

“He did a lot of good things [Friday],” Brooks said. “He’s progressing well. Don’t know where that leads us, at the moment, other than he’s another day closer. But, like I said, he did a lot of good things.”

Washington has just five games until the All-Star break. That’s 11 calendar days from Sunday until its final game before the break on Feb. 16. More important, the trade deadline is 3 p.m. on Feb. 23. It’s logical to think the Wizards are desperate to know what Mahinmi can provide before that time comes. The challenge is to have a clear understanding in that short window of what Mahinmi can do. Brooks downplayed the timeline.

“I’m just focused on getting him back and then integrating him with our team,” Brooks said. “Then trying to find the mix of playing him and where to play him and who to play him with. There’s going to be an adjustment period, but the league doesn’t care about adjustment periods. We have to figure out how to do it on the fly and try to make it as seamless as possible.”

Another big night for Gortat. Marcin Gortat had nine rebounds in the first quarter. But, that’s not the reason to talk about him on Saturday night. It was a fervent evening for him because of Polish Heritage Night. Gortat had Polish stars in town, including a famous Polish actress, an UFC women’s champion and a bevy of press from Poland. He conducted pregame interviews with them, postgame interviews, then put together a little entertainment show for after the game. The night is an annual event for Gortat, one that has taken off since his time in the nation’s capital. Gortat, 32, may have political aspirations after his basketball career is over.

• Todd Dybas can be reached at tdybas@washingtontimes.com.

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