What started out as an amazing lead for the Wizards at 35 points over the Clippers during the January 25 game ended up going how no one would have predicted. Ultimately, this game really hurt the Wizards. Everything was going right for them. Everyone was playing amazing… until they started to collapse. At halftime, most of us thought there was no way the Clippers could come back from this. And yet, they did.
The Wizards were up by about 30 points until the third quarter, when everything began to fall apart. To be honest, I think Head Coach Wes Unseld, Jr., was to blame for this one. The main reason–he never adjusted the lineup once the Clippers started to come back.
At 12 minutes left in the game, the Wizards had an 18-point lead. A lead like that is pretty hard to lose in that short amount of time. But, since Unseld never adjusted who was on the court, regardless of the plays that were or were not happening, the Clippers were able to complete the comeback, despite being down by such a large deficit.
This was a mistake. Unseld should have realized sooner that the Clippers were starting to rally and made a substitution. Who knows. A substitution at the end of the game, when things weren’t going well, could have helped the Wizards get back on their feet and take control of the game for good. But no. Instead, the Wizards came painfully close to breaking a record no team wants to break–that of blowing the highest lead ever in NBA history, which was 36 points by the Denver Nuggets to the Utah Jazz in 1996. This loss for the Wizards was unexpected and extremely disappointing.
