Oklahoma is a talented club and the addition of kristic should pay dividends.

they have an interim coach who seems to actually know what he’s doing.

Just under 19 minutes for the kid.

Hope Tapscott will feature him more, but I understand why he is on the bench most of the time. Still, have to give it to the man, under 19 minutes and 0 fouls.

Washington really should have won last night, and by keeping McGee on the bench, I think they missed out on some baskets:

-G.v.P

Oops. More here, for those who missed the game.

And, I hope to see more of him and Blatche together. I love Jamison, but he throws off the rotation sometimes.

-G.v.P

McGee put up 9 pts and 4 rbds in the first half, he didn’t play well in the third quarter and after that sat almost all of the fourth quarter

Juan Dixon had straight zeros across his stat sheet except for one turnover in 4:22 in the first half.

Songaila forced Tapscotts hand in the first three quarters by getting his second foul in the first quarter, his third foul in the second quarter and his fourth at the start of the third. This helped the young guys get some minutes. In fact, Dixon’s poor play, Songaila’s fouls and Etans DNP combined to give the young guys 130 mins compared to an avg under Tapscott of 79.4 mpg.

The Wizards shot 70% up til late in the first half.

In the first half, McGee had an open shot at the free throw line, and instead lobbed it over a Bobcat into the hands of Songaila for an easy lay-in. Apparently he’s heeding Taps instructions to feel free to shoot but not be a gunner.

The Wizards young guys got 130 minutes of playing time last night, a

Nick Young took the final shot of the game, and it was a good look

I wonder if National Airport had to give him clearance for take-off?

:-(

would it kill Tapscott to run at least one non-alley oop play for him? In the third quarter, he ran around and did not attempt a shot, and none of his teammates even looked for him.

Yeah – right now, I’m continuing to watch every Wizards – and who am I kidding – I’ll continue watching all year despite how bad they get, or how much worse the record becomes.

But, all-in-all this is a boring team. Butler has stopped going to the basket hard. Jamison has reverted to that little jump/hook/push shot from the right baseline, or jump shots. Mike James pounds the dribble incessantly. Blatche gets 5 or 6 baskets a game, mostly on finger rolls and jumpers. Songaila’s game could put an insomniac to sleep.

The most exciting thing this batch of “veterans” brings is maybe Etan’s “crazy elbows”; or the occasional back door cut (but even those are becoming few and far between). This team even seems to have forgotten how to fast break.

The only passion and fire I see is from the occasional Nick Young driving dunk…. the VERY rare Pecherov sightings (he really does bring a boyish energy to the court)…. or the few rare minutes that JaVale McGee is in the game.

When JaVale is in the game, I suddenly wake up; watching intently on the TV screen for something that has been rare this year from the Wizards – a WOW play. His athletic oop dunks; incredible blocks, driving dunks, and silky smooth moves around the basket bring oohs and ahhs from the crowd, and fist pumps from me watching at home.

When he’s in the game, there’s a reason to pay attention; a reason to root for the team; a reason to be a Wizards fan.

JaVale’s from the shoetops, roundhouse dunk was the Haier play of the day.

Jumpshots, jumpshots, jumpshots… we settled for too many of them, allowed them WAY too many open looks.

When the offense was working the ball was being moved around and we were getting easy baskets. When the offense wasn’t working we had isolated dribble penetration or contested jumpshots.

Without Arenas we’re really missing an alpha dog out there on the court and that puts a lot more pressure on the offensive system to create shots. The biggest deficiency I noticed in it is that the offense doesn’t work well on dribble penetration. There wasn’t proper spacing and movement by the other players when James or Crittenton went into the lane.

The other thing that stood out was that the younger players bring a lot more energy out there. That causes more exciting plays but also more mistakes. Seemed that Tapscott was okay with that in the first half but in the second opted for more stability which allowed Charlotte to creep back in. That and our complete lack of ability to rotate around on defense and contest shots. Still, we were a jumpshot falling away from winning this game.