Nicholson, a 26-year-old native of Ontario, may not impress in postgame media scrums. His delivery can best be described as Belichickian. Even so, Nicholson has inspired more excitement where it matters the most for the Wizards — on the court.

“He’s a solid basketball player. He’s very fundamentally sound,” Brooks said. “He’s not going to make a lot of mistakes. He’s very organized in his thinking on the court, which is good. We like that.”

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While injuries have caused several of the newest Wizards to stumble at the start — Thornton, acquired late last season, missed the early part of training camp with a strained thumb, while Smith (strained oblique muscle) and Ian Mahinmi (knee surgery) have sat the previous two games — Nicholson has been the solid rock from the free agent class.

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As constant as a metronome but exhibiting a varied game, Nicholson, whom the Wizards signed to a four-year, $26-million deal early during the summer, has averaged 12.8 points as well as a team-best 6.6 rebounds in five preseason games. Washington will need Nicholson’s energy under the boards on the second unit, especially with Mahinmi expected to miss at least four weeks.

But a scorer like Thornton finds Nicholson’s greatest value on the other end. Though Thornton had to sit out several early training camp practices, he couldn’t stop admiring his new teammate’s offensive skills.

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“The obvious: He gets buckets,” Thornton said of Nicholson. “You throw it down to him, 90 to 95 percent of the time it’s going to be a foul or a bucket. We joke around about that every day. We call him a ‘walking bucket.’ ”

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On Tuesday night in Columbus, Ohio, Nicholson lived up to the nickname, as he made 7 of 8 shots and scored 19 points for the second consecutive game. Several bench players were given the responsibility of closing out the Cleveland Cavaliers in the fourth quarter, and even with three scorers in that unit, Nicholson stood out.

“You throw it down to him,” Thornton reiterated, “you know something good is going to happen.”

During that final quarter, Thornton made 3 of 4 shots, showing all assortment of offense: an eight-foot turnaround jumper, a putback and a cutting layup from a Trey Burke assist.

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“His shot fake, his up-and-unders, his ability to score with either hand around the basket — and he can step out to shoot threes,” Brooks said. “So you have to honor him in many spots on the floor, and our perimeter players do a good job of finding him in good positions for him to score.”

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Nicholson also pulled down six of his eight rebounds in the fourth quarter, helping Washington cap a 96-91 win.

“Whatever I can do to help this team win. It’s my main goal,” Nicholson said. ” I just know that we [on the second unit] trust each other.”

Thornton felt some pride after getting Nicholson to open up a bit recently. While the team spent time in Lexington, Ky., apparently Nicholson did speak as many words to match his thousand moves on the court.

“We sit right across each other on the bus, so I mess with him from time to time. We talk. We actually talked in Kentucky for a good little while,” Thornton said. “I was very surprised that he talked that much.