Wiz Kids: Back on the Streets

Home.

It's a place that consoles. A place where chicken soup sits simmering on-demand in the thick of winter. Where your childhood memories were formed, butting heads with siblings and tricking friends into mischief.

Home was anything but the above for the 2013-14 Washington Wizards.

Finishing 22-19 both at home and one the road in the regular season, the Wiz were 5-1 away and 1-4 at home in the playoffs.

It's unfathomable. Intensity should rise in front of your home crowd, ideally full of supporters and die-hard fanatics.

As a Baltimore Ravens fan, I know, TRULY, what real fans bring to the table.

Rain or shine.

Win or lose.

Wizards fans are gutless. They have no class, not even for their own team.

Come late. Leave early. In bed by 10.

The crowd was emptying with 2 minutes left in the 4th last night. The same crowd that gave a false sense of engagement at the 6-minute mark when the wizards went on a run capped by a Bradley Beal 3 that gave them a short-lived, 1-point lead.

The Pacers stormed back, going on a 9-0 run of their own and just like that, all hope was lost.

There was no celebration, at the end of a tough series loss, for a team that finished 29-53 just a season before.

Winning 15 more games in just one season merits substantial appreciation, of which Washington fans showed very little.

It all started in the first, when the Pacers came out with high intensity on the boards and jumped to a double digit lead. The Wiz cut it to 6 after 1, but Indiana was well aware about the advantage they had permanently carved for the remaining 36 minutes.

David West brought flashes of his early New Orleans Hornets days, accounting for 36% of Indiana's shots scoring 26 on 13/26 shooting. It seemed like every other possession, West had an uncontested 18-footer that he knocked down like Dirk.

At the end of the day, John Wall waited until the 3rd to really push the ball -- Washington had zero fast break points in the first half.

To no one's astonishment, half-court basketball was the Wizards' demise.

All in all, it was an incredible season for the team. This is what real Wiz fans expected in Wall's freshman year, but it's good to see his progression and how it's grown in tandem with the addition of a REAL supporting cast -- especially a rising superstar in Beal.

Look for another top-5 Eastern Conference finish in 2014-15's regular season.