Jamie Mottram's Sports Blog - www.misterirrelevant.com

For the first time in awhile, it's good to be DCSportsGuy. Sure, the Dreadskins are stuck in a post-Gibbs Era I hangover and the Perps missed the Dance, but the 1st-place Nats open RFK tonight (I'll be there) and the Wiz clinched a playoff birth after taking the Baby Bulls by the horns last night.

Let me repeat that. The Wiz are in the postseason. This hasn't happened since '97 when I was a sophomore in college and Scottie Pippen dunked on all of DC to drive a stake through our still beating playoff heart.

Thankfully Eric Neel used 2,000 words featured off ESPN.com's main page yesterday to say what I used 500 words in December to say: the Wiz are fun to watch and their Big Three (Arenas, Hughes and Jamison) are as good as anyone's.

What's left now is to jostle with Chicago and Indy for the 4-6 seeds in the East. Four would be nice, as it comes with homecourt advantage, but six may be better, b/c it means facing the lukewarm Celtics rather than the redhot Bulls or Pacers. Either way, whoever gets past round one gets lopped off by Detroit or Miami in round two.

All we want is to win just one series though. The Retro Bullets are the only NBA team that hasn't won 45 games in a season since the '70s. And if they win just two of their last four, they'll make it happen this year. And I can't wait for playoff hoops in DC.

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