Written by Jerry Brewer at Washington Post.com
The playoffs have a delightful way — or an annoying way — of making everything urgent. You can feel in control, but you can never feel comfortable. As a matter of fact, don’t feel anything. A fresh challenge is already flying toward your head.
Such constant bombardment distorts the concept of momentum. In the NBApostseason, there’s too much starting and stopping, too much reevaluating and adjusting, too much emotion and importance. The Washington Wizards didn’t break the Boston Celtics’ will with back-to-back blowout home victories, just like the Celtics didn’t faze the Wizards by winning the first two games despite being outplayed. Even when one team runs away with a series, it does so uphill sprint by uphill sprint.
So while the Wizards have played well enough to think they could’ve won all four games, while they have reason to believe the series is going their way, the pressure on them intensifies nonetheless. With the best-of-seven series tied at 2, the Wizards need to understand one thing as they return to Boston on Wednesday night: Game 5 is the most important of their season.
It’s not an elimination game, but it’s much bigger than Coach Scott Brooks cared to acknowledge Tuesday afternoon when he said after practice, “If we want to advance, we have to win a game up there. So we’re looking at this as the first crack to do that.”
Brooks isn’t wrong to say that. It’s factually correct. This is now a best-of-three series, and if the Wizards can win Game 6 at home, the Wizards must also capture either Game 5 or 7 in Boston to prevail. But it’s misleading to suggest Game 5 is merely a first crack at winning in Boston.
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