Wizards Earn 1st 4-Game Sweep in Franchise History

With Sunday's 125-94 win over the Toronto Raptors, the Washington Wizards completed their first four-game sweep of a playoff series in franchise history, per NBA.com/stats.

In what was supposed to be a very evenly matched series between the Eastern Conference's fourth- and fifth-seeded teams, the Wizards surprisingly turned it into a one-sided show.

Game 1 in Toronto required overtime, but there was no looking back after the Wizards outscored the Raptors 11-4 in the extra period to take a 1-0 series lead.

Washington then won Game 2 in Toronto by a score of 117-106 despite trailing 31-26 at the end of the first quarter.

Game 3 in Washington was another reasonably close contest, but the Wizards ultimately pulled it out 106-99 to take a commanding 3-0 series lead.

The fourth and final game was the real laugher, as the Raptors barely bothered to show up in the face of a seemingly insurmountable deficit.

While the four-game sweep was the first of its kind in Wizards history, it's certainly worth noting that the NBA used either a best-of-three or best-of-five series in the first round of the playoffs until 2003.

When the 1977-78 Washington Bullets surprisingly won a championship on the heels of a modest 44-38 regular-season record, the team's first-round series was a best-of-three against the Atlanta Hawks that only lasted two games.

Of course, the later rounds of the playoffs have long been best-of-seven, but the Wizards/Bullets haven't had much luck advancing past the opening round.

Prior to last season's second-round exit, nine of Washington's last 10 playoff appearances had ended with a first-round exit, highlighted by a stretch from 1984 to 1988 in which the team was eliminated in the first round in five consecutive seasons.