Four long years had come and gone. Finally, his first playoff game at home.
From the moment he pantomimed a home run in player introductions and the decibels inside Verizon Center kept climbing, John Wall didn’t merely want to win Game 3 and stake the Washington Wizards to an all-but-over 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven series; he wanted to electrify every square foot of Penn Quarter.
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There was just one impediment, one quality that trumped an all-star guard’s showmanship and stamina Friday night in Washington’s first night hosting an NBA postseason game since 2008:
The survival instinct of the Chicago Bulls.
No team in the league has come back from a 3-0 deficit in a seven-game series, and the Bulls weren’t about ready to try. They spoiled a great event night in the District, fending off the Wizards in a physical affair, 100-97.
Mostly, they ruined Wall’s playoff debut at home — something he had waited for far too long.
He was almost too amped in some ways, preferring the theatrical to what was working best: his head-down, linear drives to the goal that hardly anyone in pro basketball can keep up with.
Wall finished with 23 points, combining for 48 with Bradley Beal. He came back into the game late and changed the momentum defensively, stepping in front of a Mike Dunleavy pass with more than four minutes left and then completing a three-point play to draw Washington within one.
But he also had some late-game gaffes, including two crucial missed free throws with more than a minute left and the game tied.
The simple eluded him much of the night. The spectacular? He cornered that market from the get-go, throwing down a left-handed dunk on the break early on and actually missing a 360-degree layup in traffic that was about the most scintillating missed shot anyone could remember.
He wobbled Kirk Hinrich with about three minutes left in the third quarter. The fastest man end to end in the NBA since a young Jason Kidd, Wall shook the Bulls’ industrious guard with two mesmerizing crossover dribbles before a 19-foot swish left his fingertips.
When Nene committed a dumb no-no and got himself thrown out for going nose-to-nose with Jimmy Butler and then reaching around the back of Bulls’ guard head as if he wanted to grapple, Chicago got inspired and jumped out to an 85-78 lead with six minutes left.
Then Wall changed the momentum on both ends. He stepped in front of a Mike Dunleavy pass, stole the ball, hit the layup and drew the foul. He got Bradley Beal involved, all Beal did was do what he did in Game 2, make almost every monster shot he took in the final minutes.
Then the arena shook, all 19,000 plus, releasing the same pent-up, it’s-been-too-long roar as the Wizards’ all-star point guard.
He had waited four years. They had waited six.
The sheen of national television in late April, a full house on Abe Pollin Way in their red-white-and-blue cotton, “DC Rising” emblazoned on the front.
Long time coming.
Wall lost just two games at Kentucky – two games during his one year in college basketball. He said he couldn’t remember his team losing 10 or 11 times in his whole life before his rookie year with the Wizards in 2010.
The next three years, Washington lost 158 games and won just 72. One of the most competitive athletes in not merely the NBA but pro sports, it killed Wall to lose more than twice as much as he won.
“The worst feeling of all,” he said before this season. “It’s like you don’t matter to people in the NBA before the all-star break when you lose like that. Between that and the injuries, I just want to put it behind me. We want to put it behind us.”
They did, winning three more road games in a single season than the past three years. Wall was named to his first all-star team in February, making so many big plays and finally realizing the benefits of slowing the game down and waiting for his teammates to catch up and get involved in a half-court set.
There was a video montage between the third and fourth quarter of how the team was built, beginning with Wall celebrating clinching a playoff berth and then going back to the night David Stern announced his name as the No. 1 pick in 2010.
It’s wild now, but he actually played with Gilbert Arenas his first few months. He saw the dismantling of the young joker club and the assembling of a more-serious locker room of veterans.
It all culminated in John Wall walking out Friday night beneath the klieg lights and the loud sounds of a home sellout in late April, to monster applause and the possibility of so much more if he, Beal and their old-head teammates could get it done in Game 3.
Like I said, the only thing more irrepressible than his showmanship was the Bulls’ survivalist skills.
Wall’s first home playoff victory would have to wait until at least Sunday. And if he needs to understand anything over the next 48 hours after a four-year wait, he needs to understand the show needs to be shelved for the basics of basketball. These Bulls don’t go down when they get stuck. Wall has to counter their resilience with his own, the kind of resilience it takes a player to turn around a franchise after four, long years.
For more by Mike Wise, visit http://ift.tt/1a95Asm.