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Magic 106, Wizards 81

Box Score
Game Flow
Post Recap
Times Recap
Mister Irrelevant with some love for JaVale.
Third Quarter Collapse
Ziller more or less says the Wizards are really, really bad right now.

Also, before we dive into Saturday's recap full-force, you should check out these fine recaps from Hoops Addict and Posting and Toasting from Friday's game against the Knicks.

Highest Plus/Minus: JaVale McGee (+3
Lowest Plus/Minus:
Juan Dixon (-24)
Best Five Man Unit: Dee Brown, Nick Young, Oleksiy Pecherov, Andray Blatche, JaVale McGee (+6 for the first part of the 4th quarter)
Worst Five Man Unit: Juan Dixon, Nick Young, Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison, Andray Blatche (-6 for a stretch in the second quarter)

Four Factors:

Team Pace Efficiency eFG% FT Rate OReb% TO Rate
Wizards 92 88.0 43.0 16.5 18.9 17.4
Magic 92 115.2 55.1 25.6 30.0 14.1

Well, I think that was about what everyone was expecting.  You don't see a lot of teams that struggle guarding the 3 point line and lack a good interior defender win a lot of games against a team like Orlando who has a slew of outside shooters and the man-beast that is Dwight Howard

There's not a lot of positive stuff that we can point to right now, but I want to try to end this recap on a good note, so we're going to do this in reverse.

Star-divide

The Ugly

I try not to be critical of refs because I know it's a tough job, but how does this happen?

Caronblood_medium

The Bad

Interior defense, perimeter defense, mid-range defense, Chewbacca defense - But you already knew that.

Assists - Yeah, it's kind of hard to win when you only get 13 of those.  It's even harder to win when all 13 of those assists come from just 4 players.

Dominic McGuire - Taser, you know I love ya, but if you're going to get 12:56 of burn, you really need to have more than 1 TO and 1 PF in your final tally.  I know there's a lot more to the game than what shows up in the stat sheet, and most of your contributions come in those areas, but we need little more on the tangible end.

Darius Songaila - You know him.  The guy that plays center for us occasionally, he's 6-9, 248 lbs. you know that guy?  Yeah, he has the lowest rebounding rate on the team.  Lower than JaVale McGee, lower than Caron Butler, lower than Dee Brown, lower than Antonio Daniels.  He's averaging 2.3 rebounds per 36 minutes right now.

The Good

DeShawn Stevenson - At least shooting-wise, he was finally able to breakthrough tonight, and it wasn't just because he was hitting more threes at a better rate than normal.  He's still not back to form yet, but it's a start.

Antonio Daniels is injured (hear me out here) - I say that because according to Mike Jones, AD has been battling with the knee issue that kept him out last night since the preseason.  If that's the case, then it's entirely possible that his struggles this season are because of his knee, rather than hitting the age wall, which gives us some hope that he can return to form. Obviously, you never want to see a guy injured, but if some time off to heal up can get him back to normal, it's a far better option then seeing him gut it out at less 100%.

JaVale McGee - Just in case I haven't officially announced it yet, here it is: I was totally wrong about JaVale McGee, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Nick Young - In a season that has lacked bright spots, Nick Young has shone like a beacon so far this year.  He's currently 11th in the NBA in points per 36, higher than Carlos Boozer, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, Al Jefferson, Kevin Martin, and Richard Hamilton to name a few.  Plus, six of the ten players ahead of Young have a lower FG% and nine of them have higher usage rates than Young.  I know it's only a five game sample and the other parts of his game need some work (though they have gotten bettter this season), but Nick has shown that he's going to be an explosive scorer in this league for many years to come.

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I think it's time

Another thing about Nick Young….. He’s been actually playing decent defense this year.

Yes, occasionally he’s out of position; and occasionally his man gets away from him – but mostly, he’s been acting like he cares on the Defensive end – and has been showing a renewed determination in guarding his man.

Is it time to Officially stop calling Nick a “bad defender”?

by Rook6980 on Nov 9, 2008 7:01 PM EST reply reply actions actions   0 recs

We're Close...

I tell you what, the kid has been hustling, especially when it comes to contesting jumpers.

Representing DC with Wizards & Stuff - Truth About It Dot Net

by Truth About It on Nov 10, 2008 11:44 AM EST to parent up reply reply actions actions   0 recs

Give it a few more games

But you are right; “bad defender” is definitely not the appropriate term to describe his defense so far. This is good, because at least we know he has the ability – whether his effort will remain strong is anybody’s guess, but I have to feel good about what I’ve seen so far. Actually, I’m a bit surprised by how fast he has appeared to grow up this year: maybe Gil’s mentoring actually meant something?

Getting buckets since 2003.

by Icantfeelmyface on Nov 10, 2008 3:45 PM EST to parent up reply reply actions actions   0 recs

To me

That was a horrible horrible game. Not the worst by the players, but perhaps the worst by Eddie J.

Why wait so long to give McGee a shot when Etan obviously had no chance at defending Howard? Sure, I figured McGee to get eaten up too, but at least make Howard work on the other end.

The 3 point defense…I mean how do you not address that by now? There was one play (end of 1st Q?) after a time out that we just let them set up for an open 3 from the inbounds. We’re just telling teams that they can have the corner 3 any time they want it. What better way to make a shooter hot than give him a consistent open shot. I know we’ve been bad at that for a while, but this season seems different. This season it seems like part of the plan to give away the corner 3.

The sub pattern is a mess, it’s got to get into guy’s heads. I know EJ is just trying to see what will work, but you have to find some consistency somewhere. Too much Songila one night and none the next?

I could go on, of course.

At this point I’m having a hard time envisioning how the Wiz can win a game.

by MR on Nov 9, 2008 8:35 PM EST reply reply actions actions   0 recs

I've Calmed Down From the Other Night

But my opinion on Eddie Jordan hasn’t changed much.

That was a horrible horrible game. Not the worst by the players, but perhaps the worst by Eddie J.

The 3 point defense…I mean how do you not address that by now? There was one play (end of 1st Q?) after a time out that we just let them set up for an open 3 from the inbounds. We’re just telling teams that they can have the corner 3 any time they want it. What better way to make a shooter hot than give him a consistent open shot. I know we’ve been bad at that for a while, but this season seems different. This season it seems like part of the plan to give away the corner 3.

Eddie’s plan is to give up any 3, not just the corner ones. Guarding the 3-point line will never, I repeat, never be a priority for Eddie. If you haven’t prepared to be frustrated by this yet, get prepared now. It’s one of the major frustrations I have with watching the Wizards, and it will never change as long as Eddie Jordan is the head coach.

If the Wizards haven’t patched the holes on this sinking ship by Christmas, then I say fire Eddie Jordan. Give a new coach a head start on rebuilding this team for next season. Hopefully, with a little luck on the injury front and a new coach who can actually get this team to play defense, this team will be poised for 50+ wins next year and a top 3 seed in the East.

BTW, I made the same call to fire Eddie Jordan last season after the 0-5 start then. Yes, he turned things around and got the team to play fairly well after that, but now I’m thinking we would have been better off to have fired him then. Maybe we would be off of the Groundhog Day repetition by now. The longer the team puts this off, the longer they’re delaying the inevitable rebuilding process. And, quite frankly, I’m tired of always having to hope that we dig out of the latest hole that Eddie has dug for us.

"It's OK for the Bullets to trade baskets, as long as they can score on their end." -- Words of wisdom from Phil Chenier

by cuppettcj on Nov 10, 2008 8:17 AM EST to parent up reply reply actions actions   0 recs

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