We actually watched most of the Wizards' 79-77 loss to the Pistons Monday night, more out of a perverse sense of duty than anything else. It was Washington's third straight night playing competitive basketball, and boy, did it show.
On ESPN980's "The Sports Fix" Tuesday afternoon, hosts Kevin Sheehan and Thom Loverro were debating whether or not Kentucky could beat the Wizards at Rupp Arena with Washington playing the third game of a back-to-back-to-back. (You catch all the conditionals in there? Good. There will be a quiz next week.) They put the question to former Maryland coach Gary Williams and his (slightly abridged) answer is after the jump.
"Well, I'll tell you, you walk into some gyms -- and that would be one of them, Rupp Arena, we played there when I was at Maryland -- and you'd better be tough. Regardless of how good you are, you can get taken out of the game, with the crowd -- you just don't feel right. You can't play your game."
"I think for one game -- Kentucky couldn't play in the NBA or anything like that-- but for one game at Rupp Arena, I wouldn't be surprised to see Kentucky win one game. Because you're gonna have five players off [Kentucky] playing in the NBA and probably playing significant roles."
At this point, Sheehan chimed in and asked whether Nene wouldn't dominate inside, to which Williams responded, "He's gotta cover [Anthony] Davis ... Kentucky's athletic ability is as good as pro teams. They don't have the basketball experience, obviously ... Kentucky runs good stuff. In other words, they get their best players shots, and unless you play great defense against that, I don't care if you're an NBA team or a college team, that's going to be difficult to stop."