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Highest Plus/Minus: Dominic McGuire (+11)
Lowest Plus/Minus: Darius Songaila (-5)
Best Five Man Unit: Mike James, Nick Young, Dominic McGuire, Antawn Jamison, Darius Songaila (+6 in the 3rd Quarter)
Worst Five Man Unit: Mike James, Nick Young, Caron Bulter, Antawn Jamison, Darius Songaila (-6 in the 4th Quarter)

Forgive me for starting another recap with a comparison to a game from last season, but yesterday's game reminded me a lot of Game 1 from last year.  The Wizards did unexpectedly well on the glass, played unexpectedly well defensively, and held a lead for most of the game until the Cavaliers made a late run.  The only difference was that this time the Wizards made the shots at the end (or more accurately, the shot) and the Cavaliers came up just short.

Pretty much all of the attention has focused primarily on the the travel/crab dribble fiasco at the end of the game.  I'm not going to go there because when I play basketball I play in a way that prevents any kind of accusation of traveling, which basically limits me to spot up shooting and drives where I don't have to switch hands when dribbling (I have a very Taser-like game, except for the defense part) so I'm not really in a spot to judge that call.

So other than the traveling call, how were the Wizards pull off a shorthanded win against one of the top teams in the NBA?

• The Great Equalizer: Sunday afternoon games!  I don't have any stats to back this up, but I think  most people would agree that Sunday afternoon games tend to be the sloppiest games of the week.  And let's face it, a game with lots of missed shots plays into the Wizards hands because it bails them out defensively and it doesn't really a change a whole lot for them offensively, since they're used to missing a lot of shots anyways.
  
• Rebounding: Sure, the Wizards rebounding numbers have gone up since Dominic McGuire has entered the starting lineup, but I don't think anyone was expecting the Wizards pull in more boards than the Cavs.  Sure, they were without the services of Zydrunas Ilgauskas, but Anderson Varejao is a very good rebounder in his own right.  Jamison and McGuire deserve most of the credit, combining for 23 rebounds, but this was a total team effort with every starter pulling in at least 4 boards and every bench player pulling in at least two.  Special props to Darius Songaila who pulled in a season high seven boards in nineteen minutes.  Oddly enough, Andray Blatche only pulled in 4 rebounds, but I'm pretty sure that's tied in to his injury from Friday.  He still managed to help the effort by leading the team in assists.

Like KD said in Behind the Boxscore this morning, it wasn't pretty.  But if you told me at the start of the five game gauntlet that the Wizards would have two wins, with the chance for a third on Tuesday, I would've been estatic and now as I sit here knowing that it's happened, I can say for sure that I'm estatic.  Sure, it's probably not enough to start a playoff run, but I think the team's performance over the last few games should give us hope for a run back to respectability.

Well that was a welcome surprise.  Not only did you just see the 2nd worst team in the NBA beat the 3rd best team in the league, but you just saw the Wizards (25th in the league in rebound differential) outrebound the Cavaliers (3rd in the league) by seventeen rebounds.

Caron and Antawn are just as shocked as you are.

(Photo by Ned Dishman/NBAE via Getty Images)

The Essentials:
Cavaliers (27-5) at Wizards (6-25)
1 p.m.
Verizon Center
CSN

This year:
December 25: Cavaliers 93, Wizards 89

Notable Cavaliers numbers this season:
1st in expected winning percentage (.866)
24th in pace factor (89.6 possessions per game)
1st in offensive efficiency/offensive rating (113.8)
2nd in defensive efficiency/defensive rating (99.6)

Key Links: (drop any others in the comments)
Fear The Sword
Waiting For Next Year
And One

Starting Lineups:
Wizards
PG: Mike James
SG: Caron Butler
SF: Dominic McGuire
PF: Antawn Jamison
C: Andray Blatche/JaVale McGee?

Cavaliers
PG: Mo Williams
SG: Delonte West
SF: LeBron James
PF: Ben Wallace
C: Anderson Varejao

What happens when an unstoppable force meets a mildly annoying, but movable object? I'm not quite sure, but if it's anything like Friday night vs. Boston, it probably won't be pretty.

Today's game is only half as Lithuanian as it could be: Zydrunas Ilgauskas will be on the bench for a while as he deals with a chipped bone, meaning that Anderson Varejao will take his spot in the starting lineup. It also means that we might get a look at J.J. Hickson coming off the bench, who some felt the Wizards should've taken in the draft last summer.

Speaking of injuries, Andray is a game-time decision for today's game. If he doesn't play, I'm pretty sure that we'll see JaVale McGee get the start, but you never know.

Just because they do it doesn't mean we should: The Cavs have become one of the best offenses in the league thanks in part to their backcourt of Mo Williams and Delonte West. The pairing reminds me a lot of Gilbert Arenas and Larry Hughes from their days in Washington. Mo Williams takes Gilbert's role as the scoring point guard with a nice outside shot and the ability to draw fouls and get to the line. Delonte West takes Larry Hughes' role as the combo guard that can do a little bit of everything.

Should the Wizards try to mimic this matchup by trotting out Mike James and Juan Dixon in the backcourt? No.

Will they probably do it anyway? Yeah.

Just a friendly reminder: There's probably going to be a lot of DVRing today between this and the two NFL playoff games today, so try not to spoil anything in the comments.

This is an open thread, so if you feel like Shawn Kemp in Cleveland after all of your holiday eating, you can vent here.

GO WIZARDS!

UPDATE #2: For some really odd reason, I have tickets to this game and am actually attending in person.  I'll be wearing my Monumental Air T-shirt, even though it's about two sizes too big for me (they gave me the wrong size).  Failing that, I'll probably be wearing my Obama/Arenas T-shirt.  Either way, feel free to say hello if you are also attending.  I'll probably be around Chinatown before and after the game as well.