Monthly Archives: January 2012

live – wizards continue culture of losing

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Wizards Host Celtics 22 Jan 2012Today I’ve read a decent amount of coverage regarding the Wizards game against the Celtics from yesterday, almost every headline boils down to: “Paul Pierce has great game as injured Celtics win.” That’s all true, no part of that is incorrect. There is however a substantial piece of the story that is not mentioned at all, which is that the Wizards looked like the far-better team most of the game. As much as the Ravens and 49ers did the same day, Washington lost themselves this game.

Off-ball fouls, lackadaisical defense following any poor offensive series, and a derailing technical all in the fourth quarter cost the Wizards from coming away with their second win in three games. The young kids from DC showed that winning is a concept elusive to them even when they play well. The clearest indicator was on a breakaway play facilitated by Andre Blatche. The Wizards were down by 1 and Blatche snagged a rebound; Blatche spied a streaking Nick Young and threw a perfect down-court pass. Young then dunked on a hapless Pietrus and drew the foul. Washington would be up by 1 with Young shooting a free throw, and then? A taunting foul.

Being down 1 and responding with a good defensive rebound, good assist to a dunk leading to an and-one play is an impressive momentum shift with 6 minutes left. The game was at home, the mostly-silent crowd started to edge towards loud and that knuckle-headed play took everyone out of it completely. The Wizards still were up, but it felt like doom was still lurking. The next couple series included an offensive board leading to a putback for the Celtics, a steal coming off a bad decision, and suddenly the Celtics are up 4 and the inevitable Washington loss took shape.

With John Wall picking up his play lately and the athletic front court, the Wizards have the basketball talent to win far more games than the sub-13% mark they’re at currently. They just need to stop stopping themselves and letting over-the-hill players like Pierce flop their way to victory.

a nebulous fan identity

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When I go to a sporting event cheering for the visiting team, I ask friends that would know how the atmosphere is. My main concern: will people be awful to me if I’m wearing opposing colors? Almost always the answer is no, that everyone will be fine. On one such evening I was all geared up in my Capitals attire and taking the Buffalo metro down to see them visit the Sabres. Of course the metro car I was in was chock full of Sabres fans. One asked me where I was from, and rather than explain that I was from a DC-commuter city in central Maryland, I skimmed and simply answered, “Washington DC.” The Buffalo crowd were generally appeased and then we just started talking about hockey.

That’s convenient for me, for the Capitals, but most of my fan allegiances aren’t as easily explained. I like a lot of different teams for a lot of different reasons; I’ve only spent 6 months living within 350 miles of the team I care most passionately about, I talked myself into following a random NFL team at age 17, and asked a friend to pick out a soccer team for me to follow.

When people find out that I follow sports, they want to know what teams I like. It’s always a laborious process to explain that I root for the University of Michigan, the Washington Capitals and Detroit Red Wings, the Detroit Lions and New York Jets, the Detroit Tigers and Washington Nationals, whatever team Lebron James or Chauncey Billups is on, Fulham FC, the University of Maryland and Rochester Institute of Technology and Michigan State University. It’s even worse to explain how I came to root for whichever comes up.

I understand why the Buffalo fans were pleased that I was from Washington, and not a traitorous native choosing the flash of Ovechkin over the local team. But as someone that moves frequently and was born to root for a team almost 500 miles away from my childhood home, I don’t care too much about where fans are from. All that matters to claim to be a “true” fan of any team is to wish them the best in every situation. Sometimes when the playoffs are out of reach that means rooting for losses-turned-draft picks, and sometimes that can happen just eight winless games into a shortened NBA season (come on Wizards, this draft is gonna be good!).