WASHINGTON -The Big Three plus the Poetic One equaled the Washington Wizards’ first playoff victory in 17 years.

Etan Thomas, leading a Washington big-man attack notably absent in the first two games, scored 20 points on 8-for-9 shooting, grabbed nine rebounds, and, along with fellow reserve Michael Ruffin, started a second-half rout with a big third-quarter run in Saturday’s 117-99 victory over the Chicago Bulls.

The win was the first in the postseason for the Wizards since May 8, 1988, when they beat Detroit 106-103 in Game 4 of a first-round series. Of immediate concern for the Wizards is that they cut the Bulls’ series lead to 2-1, with Game 4 in Washington on Monday.

The Big Three of Gilbert Arenas, Larry Hughes and Antawn Jamison played their parts, but the trio that accounted for 66 percent of the scoring in Games 1 and 2 gained inspiration from unsung front court players Thomas, Ruffin and Brendan Haywood.

Arenas finished with 32 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. Hughes had 21 points and seven rebounds, and Jamison had 21 points and eight rebounds – but Ruffin chipped in a season-high nine points, and Haywood had eight points and nine rebounds.

Tyson Chandler had 15 points and 10 rebounds to lead six players in double figures for the Bulls, who didn’t get the type of heroic game that led them to victories in the first two games. Ben Gordon and Andres Nocioni seemed unstoppable in Game 1, and Kirk Hinrich made nearly everything he shot in Game 2. The scoring was balanced this time, but a Wizards defense much maligned for its efforts in Chicago rode the emotion of the day and held the Bulls to 39 percent shooting and dominated the last 17 minutes of the game.

Thomas has been known as much for his long dreadlocks and his “More Than an Athlete” book of poems as for his basketball prowess, especially while he was missing the first 32 games of the season with an abdominal injury. He took only five shots and scored nine points in the first two games of the series combined, and his performance Saturday nearly tripled his 7.1-point regular season average.

AP-ES-04-30-05 1756EDT