{"id":4991,"date":"2017-02-07T18:13:34","date_gmt":"2017-02-08T02:13:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=4991"},"modified":"2017-02-07T18:14:02","modified_gmt":"2017-02-08T02:14:02","slug":"dispatches-sports-desk-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/dispatches-sports-desk-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Dispatches from the sports desk"},"content":{"rendered":"<pre>By: Burke De Boer\r\nSports Editor<\/pre>\n<p>The Washington Wizards opened the year terribly, going 2-8 but turned things around and have the best record in the east over the last two mont<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernjournal\/files\/2017\/01\/Portland-blazers-oregonlive.com_-300x213.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"318\" height=\"226\" class=\" wp-image-5137 alignright\" \/>hs.<\/p>\n<p>Just last week, they dressed in all-black to put their rivalry with the Celtics to rest. And it was a funeral, beating the third-ranked Celtics 123-108. They followed it by thrashing the fourth-ranked Hawks 112-86.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, at the top of the Eastern Conference, the Cavs lost to the Blazers, the Pelicans, the Kings. LeBron made headlines saying his team is too top-heavy.<\/p>\n<p>Cleveland will get back on track; LeBron teams always do. But if this Washington team stays on form I\u2019m seeing a new candidate for sheriff in the east.<\/p>\n<p>John Wall has scored right around 30 points a game for two months. He\u2019s averaging 23 points and 10 assists this season. That\u2019s an average of a double-double.<\/p>\n<p>Otto Porter and Bradley Beal have also found themselves. The young core that Washington spent a few years developing is now paying off.<\/p>\n<p>Coming off the bench, Kelly Oubre is a defensive machine and Trey Burke sometimes shows flashes of lightning. If the Cavs are worried about depth, the Wiz may be the stuff of nightmares.<\/p>\n<p>Contact the author at journalsports@wou.edu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By: Burke De Boer Sports Editor The Washington Wizards opened the year terribly, going 2-8 but turned things around and have the best record in the east over the last two months. Just last week, they dressed in all-black to put their rivalry with the Celtics to rest. And it was a funeral, beating the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":937,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/937"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}