WASHINGTON — For most of Friday night’s game against the Wizards, it looked as if Andray Blatche was going to have a perfect return to the nation’s capital.
The former Wizard, who is derisively booed whenever he touches the ball inside Verizon Center, finished the game with 10 points, 13 rebounds and three assists in what easily was the best performance of the young season.
But the defining moment of Blatche’s night was a pair of missed free throws with 1:31 remaining in overtime that earned him his first standing ovation inside his old home in years, as it gave everyone in attendance a free chicken sandwich and allowed the Wizards to take the lead for good with a Trevor Ariza 3-pointer with 40.9 seconds to go in the extra session, on the way to dealing the Nets a 112-108 defeat.
“It felt good leaving my hand,” Blatche said. “It just didn’t [go] in for me.”
After going 9-for-30 from the field in his first four games of the season, Blatche went 4-for-5 against the Wizards and attacked the glass with an abandon he hadn’t shown so far this season in his expanded role behind Kevin Garnett.
“Just playing the game, not thinking,” Blatche said when asked what was different Friday night. “Just going with the flow, taking what’s there.”
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After missing shootaround Friday morning because of an illness, Paul Pierce was in the Nets’ starting lineup at his customary small forward spot Friday.
Coach Jason Kidd said at shootaround Pierce began feeling ill Thursday night, but the hope had been he would recover in time to be ready for the game to start. Pierce wound up being able to go, but looked far from his usual self, going 1-for-5 and finishing with four points in 26:32, including all five minutes of overtime after sitting out the entire fourth quarter.
“He’s a pro,” Kidd said of Pierce. “He put the uniform on not feeling well, but he came out and gave us everything he could. Again, to sit that long and answer the call there in that overtime, that just shows his leadership as a professional.
Up until Friday, Pierce had been excellent through the first four games for the Nets, averaging 15.8 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists in just under 28 minutes per game.
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It had looked as if Andrei Kirilenko was going to see a big jump in his minutes when he logged 12:47 in the first half Friday, scoring six points to go along with two rebounds and two assists.
But that was before Kirilenko never got off the bench in the second half or overtime, something Kidd attributed to trying to be cautious with the versatile forward as he continues to come back from back spasms that kept him out for three weeks last month.
“No,” Kidd said when asked if Kirilenko were hurt. “He’s been out for a while so I don’t want to stretch his minutes too far where he’s out again. So it’s a process with him.”
Kirilenko did, however, play 17 minutes in Tuesday’s win over Utah, after playing roughly 12 minutes in each of his first two games back from sitting out.