Cavaliers at Wizards
The Washington Wizards might not need John Wall to win games, but they would prefer to have their best player on the floor until the end of each contest. Wall will try to avoid being ejected from a third consecutive game when the Washington Wizards host the defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday.
Wall was ejected with 5:24 left in Wednesday's 118-93 win over the Boston Celtics after being assessed a flagrant-2 foul, and was bounced from Monday's contest with under a minute to play for bumping an official and using inappropriate language. Washington probably could have let Wall sit the entire fourth quarter on Wednesday, when the team put together its best performance of the young season on both ends and breezed to the win. The Cavaliers are trying to bounce back after suffering their first loss on Tuesday, 110-106 at home to the Atlanta Hawks. "We know they’re going to be gunning for us, especially after the history that we’ve had," forward Kevin Love told reporters of the Atlanta team that was swept by Cleveland in the playoffs in each of the last two seasons. "So I don’t know if it’s a respect thing. We just didn’t play good enough basketball tonight."
TV: 7 p.m. ET, FSN Ohio (Cleveland), CSN Mid-Atlantic (Washington)
ABOUT THE CAVALIERS (6-1): Cleveland point guard Kyrie Irving bounced back from a season-low eight points on 3-of-17 shooting in a win at Philadelphia on Saturday with 29 points on 11-of-27 in Tuesday's setback. Irving is still looking for his stroke from beyond the arc and went 1-of-7 from 3-point range in the loss to drop to 1-of-12 in the last two contests. "Keep launching them, man," Irving told reporters. "We have specific shooters that we have on this team to just do that or make plays for other guys. We got incredible shots (against the Hawks) - they just weren’t falling."
ABOUT THE WIZARDS (2-5): Washington put its foot down early on Wednesday and held a 34-8 lead after the first quarter against the Celtics behind small forward Otto Porter Jr. The Georgetown product scored 13 of his career-high 34 points in the first quarter and finished 14-of-19 from the floor while tying a career best with 14 rebounds. Porter added three blocks and three steals in the performance and reached 20 or more points for the third time in the last five games while posting his third double-double.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Cleveland will visit the White House to be honored for winning the NBA Championship by President Obama on Thursday.
2. Washington SG Bradley Beal left Wednesday's game with hamstring tightness and will undergo an MRI exam on Thursday.
3. The teams split four meetings last season.