Observations from Tonight's Epic Win

So I decided not to take my kids to the game tonight cause tomorrow is Halloween and they'll be up super late anyway.

Since it was just me I got floor level seats, cheap as hell owing as it's 1) the Wizards and 2) on the night of the WS game 7 (sorry...I did not stay for the postgame "watch party"..). I paid 100 bucks or so for 7th row behind the backboard right by the players tunnel.

On to the observations:

1) Harden and Russ appear to love hanging out together and dancing and such, it's a pure bromance. Also, Harden is constantly barking at his teammates (Clint, a lot) on the bench contrary to popular belief that he puts his hood on and sulks.

2) PJ Tucker earnestly believes he has never committed a foul in his entire life. He truly believes this.

3) Clint still practices his FT's, hard, in pregame, and I got a great pic from my dead battery phone of his glorious 20 foot jumper to open the game.

4) The Rockets bench is pure trash, other than maybe Rivers and the occasional cameo of good Eric Gordon. Chandler looked like ****. Thabo was problematic. I expected a lazy start because the Wizards are horrible team other than Beal, and then gradually separate as Beal sat, I could not have been more wrong, obviously. THeir lineup was ostensibly terrible - Wagner, Brown Jr (?) Isiah Thomas' remains, Bertans, Bongo - like who the **** are these guys? And then they crushed us in the 2nd and 3rd. Props to the Wizards though for making a simply ridiculous amount of corner 3's, what was it, 22-36 or something? That is inhuman. Also Rui Hachamura looked good - and the Japanese ambassador was in attendance, as well as a lot of japanese so that's something. Also a small HK protest right outside the opening gates (DC's chinatown is next to the capital one arena)

5) Road Russ - Russ is his angry russ caricature. He stands alone on the end of the bench and stands and stares outward toward the crowd and psychs himself up during pregame intros for the home team. Also, there was a Road Russ incident tonight with a guy a few seats down from me. Russ was on the bench in the first half, standing up and putting on a long sleeve white Rocket T shirt to keep warm and some guys a few seats from me yelled "Russ your shirts too tight you're having trouble maybe you're fat" or something like that Russ heard, turned around and started jawing back at the guys in our section saying something liek "what you say to me, come on down here" or something like that. The security guy went and stood near Russ. I don't know if TV caught it but it was pretty amusing. The guys trolling him were laughing and kind of scared of getting kicked out. As advertised.

6) Harden cooking - so I saw Harden put up 54 here last year and its just ridiculous when he gets hot like he did in the 3rd period and you see it live. And then I see him put up ****ing 60 here this year. When he gets on a run like that, the crowd even in a visiting arena starts oohing and ahing, like when he puts poor Isaac Bongo on skates. Its great to watch, tell all these ****ers who think Harden is boring to come watch this live.

Also, they did not really run the devastating Harden-Russ screen dribble hand off too much, I was looking for it. I saw one attempt in the first half but Russ opted to hold on to the ball.

7) Defense - the rotations were prettty lousy - they had a few good sequences but woudl just lose focus on too many plays and you get 2 guys guarding air. Again credit to Washington for having an insanely efficient night from 3. Doesn't seem like the focus is there, it's like "meh let's just keep up the pace and outscore them and we'll win". I guess it worked.

8) The end - when they announced the Nats had gone ahead of the Astros 3-2 the crowd roared, obviously, even the Rockets looked up at the Baseball score and were dejected (I think the Wiz also had just retaken the lead at that point). Props to Gordon who was utter butt from periods 2-4 for having that 'whatever, next shot' mentality, and insane hustle by Russ in the closing minutes on every rebound and cut to the basket, as well as the clutch FT. Anyway, it was a lot of fun to be at this game this year and while it was sloppy at times, it was "Are you not entertained" type **** from Harden and Russ, and you know what?

I was.

Edit: Sorry I forgot Harden missed that last FT and only had 59 (on purpose?)

 

And they did it right in front of Ryan Anderson, it was rude.