Guys I trust with the ball: Agent 0, MM, Tough Juice, Twan, BWood, DSteves, and Fab.
The ball moves well with all these guys. Fab provides much more than I expected. He’s a crafty physical defender, smart passer, and a great screener. Deshawn, looks composed out there with any group of guys, spreads the floor and is also a physical defender.

Guys who are getting there: Foye and Blatche.
I think these guys will benefit the most from coming off the bench. They can be aggressive against second team guys and not worrying about meshing with the established players as much. Can Foye play like Jason Terry on offense?

Still a ways to go: Nick, Javale and Dominic.
You never know what Nick or Javale will do with the ball, could be amazing or terrible. Dominic seems to be struggling to find his niche, probably due to his position changing so much. In the end, whatever they provide, consistency is the key.

Did he actually shoot left-handed and miss on purpose or was that a joke? I can’t find any information about it on NBA.com and it’s not on the video recap.

Team defense was much better tonight (as opposed to the Atlanta game). Philly shot 42.5% from the field. Flip Saunder’s goal is to hold opponents to 44% shooting or less. Philly didn’t shoot many 3-point shots (although they’re not really a good 3-point team), and for the most part, those they did were contested. I didn’t see much of Flip’s match-up-zone defense, but I did see less gambling for steals, and more of an effort to close out and contest shots. I’ll be interested to see bwoodsxyz’s expanded box score for this game; and especially the five new defensive statistics he’s been tracking.

Nick Young on Defense – is still a work in progress. He did some good things tonight, like staying focused, not making any mental mistakes – but he also made some mistakes, mostly physical or technique. He lost his man several times on screens and of course, that final foul was not good. Someone needs to work with Nick on getting around screens. It’s just too easy for the Offensive player to lose Nick on a screen. I’m not sure if it’s a strength thing, or angles, or what… I just know it’s not for lack of trying, because he sure looks like he’s putting forth the effort.

Nick Young on Offense – He’s getting better and better shooting off screens, and he’s getting his points within the scope of the offense; but he’s still not bringing anything else to the Team …. Only 2 rebounds, 1 assist and a steal in 20 minutes; with 3 TO’s. I’m really not very concerned with the Turn overs (one was a bad call by a replacement ref, and another was an entry pass to Oberto where I thought Oberto should have come out for the ball) – but if he’s going to continue to be a so-so defender, I’d really like to see him bring something more to the team than just scoring.

The more I see of Oberto, the more I like what I see. He’s an excellent defensive rebounder, using an old-school rebounding technique I like to call “boxing out” – something that, like the underhand free throw, is rarely seen in the League any more. He sets bone jarring screens; and he’s a sneaky good passer. If he had Darius Songaila’s jump shot, he’d be an All-Star. In 25 minutes on the floor tonight, he didn’t score – but he had 9 rebounds (7 defensive), 3 assists and 2 steals. Plus he set about 10 teeth rattling screens, and played excellent positional defense. I especially liked when Haywood and Oberto played together. It was nice to see two smart, defensive oriented bigs on the floor at the same time. We saw that tandem for most of the 1st quarter, and the Wizards held Philly to 17 points in the quarter, while dominating the paint.

Deshawn Stevenson, like Oberto, didn’t score much; but he worked hard on Defense, helped on the defensive boards (6), and had 3 assists. The ball seemed to move better when Stevenson was in the game.

Someone on the Wizard’s coaching staff has been working hard to teach these players good screning techniques. Obviously Oberto is a good screener, but Haywood (never known in the past for setting good picks), Jamison, McGuire, Blatche and even Javale McGee have been setting really good screens all Preseason. And, just as important, the guards have been setting up their defenders properly to run into those screens at the correct timing and angle. It’s not just the bigs either; both Young and Foye have set some nice screens as well.

Boy, it’s nice to finally have a Head Coach that can diagram good inbounds, end-of-quarter, and end-of-game plays. All night long, coming off time-outs, on inbounds plays (any time Flip had time to diagram a play) the Wizards got a good, clean, open shot; including the game-tying shot Nick Young made with 31 seconds left in the game. I’m going to diagram that play later and post it, because I saw it run several times last night with excellent results; and I think we’ll see more of it in the regular season.

Mike James had a good game. He’s showing us that he can’t be counted out for that back-up PG job. He shot a good percentage, with only one ill-advised 3-point shot early in the shot clock. Plus he was disruptive on Defense, with 3 steals and several deflections. I really hate to say this, because I’ve never been a Mike James fan, but the last two games he’s shown he can run this Offense efficiently.

JaVale McGee had another good and bad game. His 7 rebounds (5 Defensive) and his 3 blocked shots = good. He started out concentrating on defense, blocking out on Defensive rebound efforts, contesting shots, rebounding well and generally playing within himself and under control. In other words, he wasn’t sprinting around, jumping up and down like a pogo stick – until the last 2 minutes of the game. That’s when his shot selection was questionable (at best), his defense became lazy and he made some boneheadded plays. He had a big Offensive rebound late in the game = good; his subsequent 15-ft jumper, with 20 seconds left on the shot clock = bad. He allowed Speights to easily roll into the lane for a short jump hook with 44 seconds left to give Philly the lead = bad. (He relied too much on his ability to block shots and allowed Speights to get within 6-feet, instead of playing aggressive positional defense, and contesting a longer shot). With 16 seconds left in a tied game, he got the long defensive rebound = good. Instead of pulling the ball out and having the Wizard’s run a play to win the game, he tried taking the ball to the hoop for a failed finger roll attempt = bad.

Officially, there must be at least .4 seconds left in order to attempt a shot other than a tip-in; there was only .3 left. Therefore, at best Philly could have got two points. If James had just hit the shot he would have guaranteed overtime. If he missed then they wouldn’t have time to rebound, call timeout, and set up for a final attempt.

Instead, he airballs it and Philly gets a chance at winning the damn thing. Any time some end-of- game strategy comes from Nick Young you know you’re in trouble … I just hope Flip had dozed off. Letting the players dream up cockamamie strategies can’t be indicative of how he’ll handle real late-game situations, right?

So how can you ‘really’ say that it wasn’t a foul from the suspect replay?

:)

Yeah, I don’t even care if Mike James’ elbow got skimmed by a finger, it was a bad call.

Nevertheless, I was seeking my inner Flip Saunders by thinking to myself, “Ball Don’t Lie.” I believe JaVale was fouled on that fast break. HOWEVER, JaVale was not smart, and I wasn’t THAT angry that a foul wasn’t called, because perhaps he didn’t deserve it. I have mixed feelings about the whole thing…

However, bottom line is, we didn’t truly win that game, or at least deserve it.