In the Rotation: NBA Week 5
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Final Score: Indiana 110 - Washington 117
Washington, DC (Sports Network) - Roger Mason drained a career-high seven three-pointers en route to dropping 31 points as the short-handed Washington Wizards ended any hope the Indiana Pacers had of sneaking into the playoffs with a 117-110 victory at the Verizon Center.
Nick Young scored 14 points off the bench for Washington, which is locked into the No. 5 slot in the Eastern Conference after Cleveland's 91-90 victory over Philadelphia on Monday. The Wizards will square off against the Cavaliers in the first round of the playoffs.
Antawn Jamison added 12 points and eight rebounds, while Andray Blatche chipped in with 11 and 11.
The Wizards were without Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler. Arenas was held out of the contest for precautionary reasons, and Butler is still recovering from a bruised right knee suffered last week.
Danny Granger had 35 points and nine rebounds while hitting seven three- pointers for the Pacers, who were eliminated from the playoff race with the loss. Mike Dunleavy finished with 26 points, and Ronald Murray contributed 11 points and a game-high seven assists.
"We're very disappointed that we didn't make the playoffs," Indiana coach Jim O'Brien said. "That's why you play. You play to go to the postseason and when you hear that you're not going to make that playoffs it's very disappointing."
With Indiana's loss, the idle Atlanta Hawks earned the final spot in the East, their first playoff appearance since the 1998-99 season.
Indiana clearly missed leading rebounder Jeff Foster (8.7 rpg), who sat out Monday's contest with a bruised right knee, as the Pacers were out-rebounded, 58-31.
In the fourth, the Pacers kept launching threes in an attempt to get back in the game. The occasional triple fell for Indiana and Washington finally struggled to get buckets.
Granger hit a three-ball to cut the lead to 112-105 with 1:11 left in the game, and Marquis Daniels followed a few possessions later with a three of his own to make it a three-point game with less than 20 seconds remaining.
The Wizards, however, drained their final four free throws to eliminate the Pacers from a postseason berth.
Washington shot 56 percent from the field in the first quarter, hitting four three-pointers and jumping out to a 35-28 margin at the end of the frame.
Two minutes into the second, an Oleksiy Pecherov layup off an offensive rebound jump-started seven straight points for the Wizards, as the desperate Pacers trailed by 15. Granger nailed a three-pointer in the final minute for Indiana, who still trailed 66-54 at the break.
Mason was unconscious in the third quarter, compiling 13 points and three hits from behind the arc to help the Wizards pull away. Mason and Jamison hit back- to-back three-pointers late in the frame, and Indiana trailed, 98-81, headed to the final period.
"Every time he shot it, it looked good," Granger said of Mason. "He had one of those nights. I don't know if it was a career night or not. He pretty much carried them."
Washington hit 13-of-24 from behind the arc, while Indiana sunk 14-of-30 from the same distance.
"We made the runs that we had to make to get the cushion and fight a team that can make threes," Wizards coach Eddie Jordan said. "We did enough grunt work to build a cushion and we made mistakes, but we held on."
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