Wizards Fall To Celtics

In the musical “Damn Yankees,” a frustrated Washington Senators fan is willing to trade his soul to have his miserable baseball team rise up and win a World Series.

That curse still works. Disappointment is Washington, D.C.’s lot in this sporting life.

Last week, the best team during the NHL’s regular season, the Washington Capitals, was eliminated from the playoffs in the second round. This is a rite of spring. The Capitals never get beyond the second round, have played for the Stanley Cup only once and have never won it.

On Monday night, the Washington Wizards fell 115-105 to the Boston Celtics to terminate their season in the second round of the playoffs. They’ve been booted from the playoffs three times in the last four years after winning exactly one series and missed the playoffs in that other season. They have not won the NBA championship since 1978.

Were the Wizards foiled by Boston star Isaiah Thomas? Nooo. A backup center named Kelly Olynyk ruined them. Olynyk scored a career-high 26 points, 12 of them in a stretch of 3 minutes and 30 seconds of the fourth quarter, to send the Wizards home for the summer.

Here’s what ESPN Sports and Information noted: Olynyk is the first Celtics reserve to score 25-plus points in a playoff game since Eddie House scored 31 on May 6, 2009, against the Orlando Magic. Olynyk’s 26 points were the most by any bench player in a Game 7 since Leandro Barbosa scored 26 points for the Suns in a 2006 playoff game against the Lakers.

There was once a chain of appliance stores in the northeastern United States called Nobody Beats The Wiz, so named because of their low prices. It’s gone now, long gone. Just as hope is in D.C.

Everyone beats the Wiz. And the Caps.

Well, there’s always the Nationals (no World Series titles) and the Redskins (last championship in 1993).
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman