John Wall puts a charge into the crowd with thunderous slam in Wizards-Hawks Game 5

In Game 3 of the Washington Wizards’ first-round playoff series against the Atlanta Hawks, John Wall did his best to redeem a poor team effort by going the length of the court, slicing through the Atlanta defense, and hammering home a dunk that stands as arguably the best of the postseason thus far. In Wednesday’s pivotal Game 5, the All-Star point guard proved he didn’t need 94 feet of runway to throw down something nearly as nasty.

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Chalk up a (moving) screen assist for Wizards center Marcin Gortat, who did the dirty-work deed of rolling straight into Hawks reserve big man Mike Muscala to push him out of the way and clear the path for Wall after he torched Atlanta swingman Kent Bazemore off the bounce. Despite being held up in his attempt to rotate over, Muscala did make a valiant effort to contest … but all he could do was provide a foil for Wall as he called down the left-handed thunder to give the Wiz a six-point lead in a pivotal Game 5.

Getting dunked on is bad enough. Getting rocked in the face by the ball afterward, though, is even worse:

That’s what John Wall can do to you with the ball in his hands: add injury to insult.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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