NBA Game Summary - Washington at Sacramento

Sacramento, CA (Basketball News) - Caron Butler scored 23 points and pulled down nine rebounds as the Washington Wizards downed the Sacramento Kings, 97-84, at ARCO Arena.

Antonio Daniels and Antawn Jamison each scored 17 points while Billy Thomas chipped in 14 points off the bench and Etan Thomas added 12 points and eight rebounds for the Wizards, who won despite the absence of Gilbert Arenas, the team’s leading scorer and the fourth leading scorer in the NBA, who missed Tuesday’s contest with the flu.

Mike Bibby dropped 20 points while Brad Miller and Francisco Garcia each totaled 14 points for the Kings, who have now lost two straight and three of their last four games.

With the win, Washington moves to 1 1/2 games up on both Indiana and Milwaukee for the fifth spot in the Eastern Conference. The loss drops the Kings 2 1/2 games behind the idle Los Angeles Lakers for seventh in the Western Conference. They now hold a 1 1/2 game lead over Utah for the eighth and final playoff spot.

Jared Jeffries drained a jumper with 23 seconds remaining in the third quarter to extend the Wizards lead to eleven, 76-65 heading into the final 12 minutes.

Shareef Abdur-Rahim opened the final stanza with back-to-back buckets to cut the lead to seven, 76-69. However, the Wizards extended their lead to 13 points midway through the quarter as Billy Thomas converted a 3-on-1 break with a layup. The Kings could only get as close as nine points the rest of the way.

The Wizards led by one with 3:04 to play in the opening stanza, but scored nine of the final 12 points to end the quarter as Butler hit back-to-back buckets and Jamison hit three freebies as Washington held a 27-20 edge after the first quarter.

Washington held a small advantage throughout the second stanza, leading by as many as seven on a Butler free throw with 8:04 left in the half. The Kings chipped away at the lead and Ron Artest’s buzzer-beating three-pointer brought Sacramento to within one, 52-51, at the break.