In case you missed last night’s game against the Toronto Raptors, I suggest you delete it from your DVR. The Washington Wizards were destroyed by the Toronto Raptors away from home last night, but thankfully it’s an 82 game season. Washington will have a chance to bounce back with a road win tonight against the Indiana Pacers at 7:00pm EST.

Key Match Up:

The Washington Wizards played their first nationally televised game in over four years against the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday, and were able to come out with a win in overtime following John Wall‘s performance. Wall scored 31 points, grabbed 6 rebounds, and dished out 11 assists in his match up with Donald Sloan, but gave up 31 points of his own.

Donald Sloan is obviously an NBA caliber point guard, but he’s not someone that should be scoring 31 points.

John Wall has increased his offensive production, but is coming off his worst game of the season thus far against Toronto. After airballing a few shots early on, Wall seemed hesitant to shoot and Kyle Lowry went on to finish the game with a triple double.

For John Wall to continue putting up historical numbers like has had in the first five games, he needs to play with confidence and assert himself defensively. The Indiana Pacers have nothing to lose. Paul George, George Hill, and David West are all out with injuries, which has given the likes of Donald Sloan a chance to prove themselves to coach Frank Vogel. They’re playing carefree basketball and everything about tonight’s match up has “trap game” written all over it.

Wall has to make life a lot harder for the opposing point guard with his defense and length. When he’s locked in, I truly believe he’s one of the better defensive point guards in the league, but he has way too many lapses throughout the course of the game. He has to apply pressure from the get go and stop penetration to the basket. Like most bad teams, the Indiana Pacers are going to turn the ball over a lot, and the Washington Wizards should be able to create some scoring opportunities for John Wall in transition. It should be interesting to see how they bounce back after last night’s blowout loss in Toronto.

Prediction:

The Washington Wizards were visibly frustrated, during and after last night’s loss. It’s a long, long season and they can’t allow themselves to carry the frustration over to Indiana.

With that said, I think the Washington Wizards will get the win on the road against the Indiana Pacers tonight.

Everybody not named Kris Humphries, Otto Porter, and Andre Miller struggled for the Washington Wizards last night. The same cannot be said for the Raptors, who seemed to make every shot they took early on. I don’t think we’ll see the Wizards struggle that mightily very often this season and I don’t expect it to carry over tonight. The Pacers still have some scoring ability with Chris Copeland, and even Roy Hibbert, but they’re essentially depleted. I’d be very surprised if the Washington Wizards didn’t come home with a ‘W’ tonight.