It is hard to imagine how the Clippers were even in this game. Outrebounded 51-31. 22 offensive rebounds for the Wizards to 24 defensive rebounds for the Clippers. Think about that. You play defense, you force a miss... and then it's about 50-50 as to whether or not you get the ball. The rebounding advantage resulted in 17 more shots for the Wizards. SEVENTEEN! And it's not like the Clippers made up for it at the free throw line, where they had a mere 24-21 advantage. Basically, they just spotted the Wizards 17 shots. The Clippers had 68 shots in the game - which coincidentally works out to exactly 17 per quarter. Imagine playing a game where one team plays 5 quarters, and the other team plays 4 quarters. That's what happened here. The Clippers gave the Wizards an extra quarter's worth of shots.
It was no surprise therefore that the game was won on an Antawn Jamison tip in with 0.3 seconds left on the clock. What was a surprise was that Chris Kaman, the leading rebounder in the game and the third leading rebounder in the NBA, was not on the floor at the time. Corey Maggette (zero rebounds in the game) and Tim Thomas (four) were in the game. With a 2 second differential in the shot clock and the game clock and having given up 20 offensive rebounds already, it would seem fairly obvious that forcing a miss is only half the battle - rebounding the miss is the tough part. But MDsr, overthinking things as always, decided he liked the matchups better without Kaman (although Chris had been guarding Songaila most of the fourth quarter). So Kaman sat, Songaila kept the ball alive, and Jamison tipped it home. Ball game.
There's really little else to say about this game. Al Thornton looked good. Cat Mobley had a good third quarter. No one else played particularly well.
But how's this for eerie? Check out this sentence:
Believe it or not, that was not written about this game. It's from my recap of a bad loss to the Hawks, Feb. 15, 2007. The final game before the All Star break last season. Brand was hurt and Kaman was on the bench in a tie game when the Hawks made the game winning basket.
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.