WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Washington Wizards are 3-1 against the
Charlotte Bobcats -- and probably glad to be done playing one of the
league's worst teams.
Gilbert Arenas scored 34 points as the Wizards swept a
home-and-home series with Charlotte in a grinding 107-99 victory
Tuesday night.
Antawn Jamison scored 20 points and grabbed 12 rebounds for
Washington, his 32nd double-double of the season. He finally
clinched the win with 29 seconds left, following his own 3-point
miss with an easy finger-roll for the last points of the game by
either team.
Until then, the Wizards had led by six throughout the fourth
quarter, but much like Tuesday night's 119-114 victory, couldn't
find a way to pull away.
"It never ceases to amaze me how hard these guys play night in,
night out," Jamison said of the Bobcats. "This is a scary team.
They don't have anything to lose, they're just going to go out
there and just play."
Washington moved ahead of Indiana and into fifth place in the
Eastern Conference with the win. But against a team long since
erased from playoff contention, Washington hardly looked worthy of
its standing.
Jumaine Joness scored 25 points as Charlotte kept the lead in
single digits much of the game, despite getting behind 12-0 at the
start. Bernard Robinson added a career-high 21 points, including 16
in the first half, but couldn't find a way to prevent the Bobcats'
third consecutive defeat.
"I was feeling it," Robinson said. "We came out slow and I
just wanted to cause some havoc."
He may have also been trying to give his short-handed team a
much-needed boost. A day after learning Emeka Okafor would miss the
rest of the season with tendinitis in his sprained right ankle,
Bobcats' coach Bernie Bickerstaff had to sit leading-scorer Gerald
Wallace with a left ankle sprain.
Combine that with 4-for-27 shooting in the first quarter and it
looked like the Bobcats never had a chance.
But they would close what was a 16-point deficit at the
first-quarter break to four early in the third. Then the Bobcats
went on a 12-3 spurt behind by seven points from Kareem Rush to
make it 80-74 early in the fourth.
The Wizards again pushed the lead to 13 when Arenas' 3-pointer
from the right wing made it 89-76.
But Alan Anderson hit a 3-pointer for Charlotte to make it
103-97 with under two minutes left in one final comeback attempt.
"They play well against everybody," Arenas said. "When you
look around the league, you don't see them getting blown out. They
just play hard and they're one of those teams that you're never
going to blow out."
Caron Butler, who had 18 points, hit a pair of free throws with
1:44 to play before Jamison's follow, and Charlotte failed to make
a field goal the rest of the way.
"Tonight was a good win but we were not as productive overall
as I would have liked," Wizards coach Eddie Jordan said. "We just
had too many turnovers against their press and their scrambling
defense."<
^Notes:@ The win began a four-game homestand for Washington,
which will then play 12 of its last 16 on the road. ... The
Wizards' streak of games with 110-plus points ended at six. ... The
Bobcats are 6-27 on the road (18-48 overall). ... Tuesday was the
32nd game Arenas has scored 30 or more points this season.