WASHINGTON -- The Los Angeles Lakers came into a sold-out, jacked-up MCI Center last night with the third-longest winning streak in NBA history and an aura that surrounds a team expected to make a serious run at a championship. The aura is still there, but the winning streak is history.
It was ended at 19 games by the Washington Wizards.
That is not a misprint.
Proving once again to be the most underachieving team in the league, the Wizards built a shocking, 21-point lead and held on for a thrilling, 109-102 victory. The Lakers joined the NBA champion San Antonio Spurs, Indiana Pacers, New York Knicks, Toronto Raptors and Minnesota Timberwolves among Washington's victims this season.
"It was a good run for us," said Lakers coach Phil Jackson, whose team had not lost since a Feb. 1 defeat against San Antonio. "As I've told the players, you've got to have a little luck for things to continue. We had too far to come back."
The Lakers did not succumb easily. After trailing by 19 at halftime -- their largest such deficit of the season -- Los Angeles (53-12) cut Washington's lead to nine by the end of the third quarter and tied, 85-85, with a little under eight minutes left.
But Mitch Richmond, the aging but still able shooting guard, showed what made him an All-Star a few years back. He hit a tough 12-footer with a little over a minute left to give the Wizards a 101-96 lead and later made six straight free throws to help seal the victory for Washington (21-45).
Despite playing the entire fourth quarter with five fouls, Shaquille O'Neal had helped keep the Lakers in the game and finished with a game-high 40 points. But Kobe Bryant, the team's other All-Star, had one of his worst games of the season, seven points on 2-for-10 shooting and six turnovers.
"I think he ran into a wily, old veteran named Mitch Richmond," Jackson said of Bryant, who sat out most of the third quarter after picking up his fourth foul.
As satisfying a victory it was for Richmond and his teammates, there was also a sense of frustration. How can a team that lost back-to-back games earlier this season to the Chicago Bulls -- the only team in the Eastern Conference with a record worse than Washington's -- beat the NBA's best team?
"It definitely frustrates us," said Richmond, who finished with 32 points, half of them in the final quarter. "We just have to find a way to keep that same intensity."
