Two months ago, only a loon would have properly projected the vibe around Monday’s game. Back in early December, the Washington Wizards were floundering. They appeared set for another season as an also-ran or worse, adding to the lore of ineffectiveness that is clasped around the organization after years of struggles interrupted by blips of success.
However, the start of February brings a different tale. Washington has won 17 consecutive home games. Saturday night’s win against New Orleans moved it 10 games over .500 for the first time since the close of the 2015 season. Scott Brooks was recognized as coach of the month. The Wizards are riding a seven-game overall win streak, are winners of 11 of 12, 14 of 16, hot as can be. And here comes Cleveland.
This is the circumstance John Wall has been chasing. Monday night’s game between the Wizards and Cavaliers was a late addition to TNT’s schedule because the stakes — albeit regular-season stakes — merited it. The defending NBA champions trying to end the second-longest home winning streak in an organization’s history. A trio of Cleveland All-Stars versus Wall, Bradley Beal and their partners in what is arguably the conference’s second-best starting five. Wall has asked in the past for recognition and hype. He’ll get it Monday after agreeing the game is the biggest of his career in the regular season.
“I think so,” Wall said. “I’ve been in some big games before. They’re a team that’s been playing OK, but they’re defending champs. We know what team we have to chase in the East. We have a great home streak going. It’s going to be a packed crowd. A lot of people here. On (national) TV. It’s going to be an important game for us.”
As the Wizards catapulted themselves from mediocrity to eye-openers this season, Cleveland went in reverse. It was 7-8 in January. The Cavaliers spent the month embroiled in trade rumors about Kevin Love, LeBron James’ public grousing about the talent level on the league’s most expensive roster and pedestrian play.
Together, those things easily kept the Cavaliers stamped in the headlines. They also produced the same questions at every stop they made around the league. Saturday night amplified the talk when Cleveland was in New York to face James’ good friend and a rumored trade target, Carmelo Anthony. The reach to connect trade storyline dots was so long, that Love was asked postgame if his dunk was a show of anger following all of the trade rumors. He laughed.
Wizards power forward Markieff Morris had a postgame chuckle of his own Saturday. His sessions with the media are filled with cordial, brief answers delivered in soft baritone. Since being traded to Washington almost a year ago, Morris’ personality has crept out. Saturday night, he acknowledged there was importance to measuring up against Cleveland. Or was it the other way around?
“To be a good team, you’ve got to beat good teams,” Morris said. “What’s better than beating the best team in the East? Or the second-best team.”
He smiled with satisfaction at the light-hearted delivery of his claim.
The Wizards have at least established themselves as a contender for a top-four seed in the Eastern Conference. Their 2-8 start has received a 16-game flip to put them in that spot. They are slightly atop the Southeast Division. They have not won a division title since finishing first in the Atlantic Division in 1979 when there were just two divisions per conference. Brooks was 13 years old when that happened.
He’s 51 now, and as the coach knows his role in any public discussion about one game being more important than another is to smother with understatement.
“Should be an exciting atmosphere,” he said Saturday night.
“When you have the defending champs in our building, you want to make sure you come ready to play.”
“We know we’re going to have to play a good basketball game for 48 minutes to beat Cleveland.”
These are typical tropes from Brooks, a coach ingrained with the grinder’s mentality. Bradley Beal at least allowed that the game will provide abnormal engagement. The day after the Super Bowl, in a town anchored in Redskins talk, the airwaves and focus are free to stare at the Wizards for once.
“We’re climbing in the rankings and we’re going to keep climbing,” Beal said. “They’re a great team. They’re a targeted team with a big red ’X’ on their back. We’re coming after them, too. We’re excited. We’re amped up about it.”
Beal was dressed in all black after Saturday’s game. He laughed when his outfit’s color scheme was pointed out to him. As the architect of Washington’s “all-black attire” game against the Boston Celtics, Beal is now in charge of sartorial decisions when something real or mythic is on the line. There were no plans at that time to coordinate outfits.
So, instead of posturing, the Wizards will have worry about the real-world concern of Cleveland’s three All-Stars. Even at 32, James remains a multi-faceted headache and the conference’s best player. Love has returned to upper-tier form. Point guard Kyrie Irving did not play Saturday night against the Knicks, but is expected to play Monday night in Washington.
“We’ll try to slow them down, be physical with them and just play our game,” said Beal, who lauded the Cavaliers from James to the bench players. “We feel like they don’t do anything too spectacular. We’re going to be locked in and they put on their pants on the same way we do.”
Both teams will be rested after taking Super Bowl Sunday off. All the marquee players have regained their health. Television crews will start strewing cables throughout the arena in the morning and the NBA’s defending champions will be dropped off by charter bus in the late afternoon. Midday Sunday, only a few hundred tickets were available on StubHub, with the least expensive a nose-bleed seat for $62. The spotlight foundation is there. At 7 p.m. Monday, it will turn on. What will the Wizards do with it?
• Todd Dybas can be reached at tdybas@washingtontimes.com.
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