时政新闻学英语之134：奇才队难得两连胜
原文选自华盛顿邮报，链接Washington Wizards seek a rare accomplishment: Two road wins in row。
时政新闻学英语之134：奇才队难得两连胜
By Candace Buckner January 26 at 4:20 PM
ORLANDO — The singers couldn’t hold a note（音符） and their melodies fell flat（平等的） but on Friday night, their joyful noises filled the showers of the visitors' locker room at Amway Center.
After earning a 95-91 win over the Orlando Magic, several Washington Wizards players took part in an impromptu（即兴的）, and out-of-tune, shower concert. The reasons for the song were plentiful. The Wizards had arrived in Orlando early Friday morning for what could have been viewed as a “schedule loss（例行失利）” — their second consecutive game that ended a long week of adjusting back to home life following a trip to London. Instead, the road victory marked only the team’s sixth of the season.
One could hear the relief（放松） from the bathroom chorus, but also see it in the faces of the players who chowed on the postgame catering（餐饮）. The Wizards needed that win, as it helped the team keep stride（大步走） in the chase for a playoff spot. Washington (21-27) remains two games behind the eighth-seeded Charlotte Hornets.
Even more, the win in Orlando set up the Wizards for a rare achievement. As Washington continues its short yet meandering（艰难的） three-game road trip to San Antonio, the team looks for its first consecutive road victories since Dec. 3 and 5 at New York and Atlanta. Obstacles await（依旧在前）, as they always tend to do with the Wizards.
For one, Washington has not beaten the Spurs in San Antonio since 1999 for a total of 18 consecutive losses. Also, the night in Orlando notwithstanding, the Wizards are a six-win road team for a reason. Their normal deficiencies（弱势） are amplified（扩大） away from Capital One Arena; among their woes, they ranks as the worst road rebounding（反弹） team in the league with an average of only 39.0 rebounds in their 24 road games.
Although the Wizards held on for a win Friday night with a lineup that featured Jeff Green at center, they could not keep the Magic away from rebounds. Orlando clobbered（连续打击） the Wizards under the boards with a 52-38 rebounding advantage and the team’s dominance grew more pronounced（统治力更加明显） in the fourth quarter.
The Magic grabbed 15 rebounds compared to the Wizards' eight, and produced seven second-chance points（二次得分） for their efforts. Rookie Mo Bamba came off the bench to collect four rebound in 6½ minutes in the final quarter. Terrance Ross also sparked（点燃） Orlando’s second unit with four rebounds while only Trevor Ariza was the only Wizards player to secure more than one in the quarter.
The small-ball lineup（小球队列） eventually survived — Ariza grabbed the second missed free throw from Magic center Nikola Vucevic in a tied game with less than a minute to play — and will most assuredly（确信的） be relied on again in San Antonio.
The lineup with Bradley Beal and Tomas Satoransky in the backcourt along with Otto Porter Jr., Ariza and Green in the frontcourt has now appeared in 10 games and has logged 68 minutes, the third-most among all Wizards' lineups this season. Predictably, this five-man group gets beat under the boards but has produced a plus-3 rating overall. And that’s reason enough to keep the Wizards singing.
