Washington Wizards bounce back despite loss

Although the Washington Wizards weren’t able to get the job done and beat the Boston Celtics, they had a much stronger performance against them compared to the previous two games.

After losing to the New York Knicks earlier in the week, Wizards coach Brian Keefe addressed his team and gave them a wake-up call.

“I am the leader of this team. I’m the head coach of this team.” Keefe said after the loss to the Knicks. “So I will take responsibility for the last two nights of not playing with the competitive mentality we need to play with, especially defensively. This will be resolved as a group and we will become better. But it wasn’t that we should be what our standards were, and we should recognize that, and we should look at ourselves and become better.”

It’s safe to say the Wizards woke up, competing with the defending champions for most of the game.

“I mean, our guys were in their bodies. We were physical, we were dedicated. We tried to fight through everything tonight and I think we showed what we can do, but it was a good step forward for our team,” Keefe said after the game.

The Wizards know they will lose a lot of games this season. They’re already off to a 2-12 start, but as long as they stay competitive in those losses, they know that will eventually translate into wins later in the season when teams get tired.

There’s a difference between losing, learning and growing, and completely failing like the previous two games, and Wizards is making that leap.

Today the Wizards play again against the Indiana Pacers, another team that was in the Eastern Conference Finals a year ago.

Be sure to bookmark the Washington Wizards on SI for the latest breaking news, exclusive interviews, film reviews and more!