RealGM

"I'm looking at the stat sheet and if I even hit a couple of shots maybe we're not in that position," Parker said when talk turned to his overtime-forcing three. "I think (Calderon) and (Bosh) played well and shot the ball well, but I just couldn't get it going. I can't help but think if I hit a couple of shots, we're not in that position."

Hopla, who was with the Raptors for a portion of last season after joining them in late November, has been with the Wizards since the beginning of the season.

Seven different Wizards have improved their free-throw percentage.

Caron Butler, one of the hottest players in the NBA, leads the team with a 91.5% success rate from the line and has hit 70 in a row. He's eight shy of the NBA single-season record set by Calvin Murphy of the Houston Rockets in 1980-81.

"It's not just one guy, it's all of us as a team," he said. "I don't know where we're going to find it from but some kind of way we've got to learn to box out and go get the ball.

"We're not doing it. We're letting people come over our backs and I don't know if they're fouls or not but if the officials don't call it, it's not a foul.

"You've got to put a body on someone and if you're not a good rebounder, we teach face-guarding a guy, pushing him out and then (going to) get the ball. We teach it, we talk about it, we show it but we're not going to be a good basketball team until we can box out."

"Nothing has changed," Parker said. "Rebounding is going to continue to haunt us until we get better at it. It is something we need to continue to get better at. Games like this can come back and bite us."

The difference is that when they made that shot last year, we gave the game away," explained Wizards guard Antonio Daniels, who clinched last night's win by making a pair of free throws with 4.9 seconds remaining in overtime. "This time, they just hit a great shot and that was it. We just huddled up and said, 'We are not losing this game, no matter what.' "

"We talked about do we wanna foul him, and I said no," Jordan explained. "It's only a catch and shoot, so if you're fouling on a catch, the guys already in the motion, [and] you can't risk that judgment call by the official. ... It was a heck of a shot over three outstretched hands."

"This time, they just hit a great shot and that was it. We just huddled up and said, 'We are not losing this game, no matter what.' "