"Less than 24 hours after losing for the sixth time in seven gamesand for the sixth time in a row against Miami, the Washington Wizards boarded a plane for Detroit to embark on their first extended road trip of the season.

The five-game swing over 10 days comes on the heels of a 106-89 defeat on Friday night in which the Wizards pushed the Eastern Conference champions throughout the first 36 minutes but failed to pull ahead despite twice trimming the margin to one late in the third quarter.

So players and Coach Randy Wittman reinforced, as they have all season, a commitment to concentration and resolve from tip-off to final whistle. To this point in the season, the Wizards have assembled mostly incomplete performances, and those lapses have yielded five wins in 27 games, including a 3-7 record since Wittman took over for fired Flip Saunders on Jan. 24."