Wizards started the 2005–06 season at 5–1, but went on an 8–17 funk to go to 13–18 through 31 games. Then, they went 13–5 in the next eighteen games. On April 5, 2006, the team was 39–35 and looking to close in on the 45-win mark achieved the previous year, until Butler suffered a thumb sprain and the Wizards lost all five games without him. Butler returned and the team pulled out their final three games, against the Pistons, Cavaliers and Bucks, all playoff-bound teams, to finish the year at and clinch the 5th seed in the Eastern Conference. They averaged 101.7 points a game, third in the NBA and tops in the East and clinched a playoff berth for the second consecutive season for the first time since 1987. Their first-round match-up with Cleveland was widely seen as the most evenly matched series in the 2006 NBA playoffs. The teams exchanged wins during the first two games in Cleveland, with Game 2 highlighted by the Wizards holding LeBron James to 7–25 shooting from the floor while Brendan Haywood gave James a hard foul in the first quarter that many cited as the key to shaking up the rest of James's game. In Game 3 at the Verizon Center, James hit a 4-footer on the way down with 5.7 seconds left to take the game and the series lead for the Cavs with a 97–96 win. Arenas missed a potential game-winning three-pointer on the other end to seal the win for the Cavs. Game 4 saw the Wizards heat up again, as Arenas scored 20 in the fourth quarter after claiming he changed his jersey, shorts, shoes and tights in the room and the Wizards won 106–96. Yet in Games 5 and 6, the Cavs would take control of the series, both games decided by one point in overtime. In Game 5, despite the Wizards being down 107–100 with 1:18 to play, the team drove back and eventually tied the game on Butler's layup with 7.5 seconds remaining to send the game to overtime, where James scored with 0.9 seconds left in overtime to send the Cavs to a 121–120 win. The series returned to the Verizon Center for Game 6, where the game went back and forth all night. The Wizards blew a 14-point first-quarter lead, then for 24 minutes, from early in the second quarter to early in