Wizards 97, Mavericks 94: Quick thoughts on John Wall's preseason debut

- Nick Young looks like he has no place on this team.
- By your notes, I would’ve thought McGee played horrible. I know box scores don’t tell the whole story but 13 pts, 7 reb, 6 blk and a +/- of +13 isn’t too bad. He’s definitely a better option than Hilton Armstrong. He needs to do better on the boards but i thought he did just fine overall. Yes, he still has a ways to go but relax.
- Yi was a pleasant surprise with a double-double and 3 blocks.
- I still like Thorton and to his defense, it’s hard to do much in 11 minutes.
- I agree, 38 minutes is a little much for Wall in a preseason game. I would’ve liked to see Booker get some minutes.
- I liked what I saw other than the fact that we kept blowing those big leads.

I think Gilbert is unsure whether or not the team still supports him and is trying to show that it doesn’t bother him if he is traded. So many bloggers and the local media has been calling for his head and for him to be traded that he is a little raw emotionally and I can say I don’t blame him. I think Gil’s tank is on full and has a lot to offer this team and that as the season rolls on and people quit throwing that gun incident in his face, he will be fine. Don’t think he doesn’t know what the media and some bloggers are saying about him. He just needs to realize that he has more fans than not. I will be at the first home game with my Agent 0 shirt on giving him and the Wiz all of the support I can.

The guy has paid his dues heavily. Leave him be and let him play. If I ever get the opportunity to speak with him, I am going to let him know that he DOES have a lot of fans and to just do him and shake off the haters.

Oh yeah, Gil knew it was going in because the two of them have 3 point shooting contest after practices. And one last thing, don’t think Gil hasn’t heard for the millionth time how he would not fit in with Wall. That statement he made was to show the public that he is doing everything he can to help the young fellow, not hurt him in any way. People need to leave that alone also. The two of them are going to be a dynamic duo. Just wait and then we will see what the pundits have to say.

The team actually looked like it had a game plan (unlike the start of previous years).

Even though it’s preseason, winning is important for the persona of this team. It seemed like Flip didn’t care.

Young seems to have a mood disorder. He ought to get it checked out.

In the regular season, Hinrich would get hosed at the 3.

Everything they did is qualified by the fact that the Mavs totally phoned this one in. Dirk looked like he just got out of bed. I think the early success surprised the Mavs a bit, but then they just collectively shrugged their shoulders and said, “eh, it’s only preseason.” The Mavs do seem to be a good matchup for the Wizards because both teams play a bit soft.

With that in mind, I thought McGee generally outplayed Haywood. Sure he wasn’t always in position and he botched a couple of rebounds, but he was generally much better positioned than in years past. I’ll take a couple of botched rebounds if we can get six blocks out of him every game. However, his first instinct still seems to be to jump instead of to box out, and that’s going to cause problems against some of the more physical centers.

The 3 is currently a problem for the Wizards and I’m really glad about the Josh Howard signing now. The 3-guard lineup is going to be disasterous against any team that can buy a basket from that position. If Butler or Marion had been semi-effective, they could have had 30 points. Heinrich is too small to play that position except in spot minutes. Gilbert looked like a better defender against the bigger men than Heinrich, and I think we all know that defense is not his strong suit.

Blatche will not be a star until he learns to pass out of the post. He’s incredibly talented, but his instinct to shoot the ball every time he touches it will drag him down until he can overcome it.

I really want to see them try at least some minutes with McGee, Blatche and Yi at the 3, 4, 5 spots. I don’t think they ever had that lineup in. Yi was much much better defensively than I expected. With the zone defense, any of those guys should be able to close out on a shooter pretty quickly.

I like Hudson and want him to make the team.

If Nick Young has another preseason game like this, he should not be in the rotation.

Finally, John Wall is way better than I hoped he’d be. If he can learn to shoot, he’s going to be totally unstoppable. His defense still needs improvement, but even in the one game I saw improvement. He got burned on a couple of pump fakes early and then stopped getting burned later. For a rebuilding team, I’m not sure there’s another point guard in the NBA that I’d rather have at the helm. By the time he gets some polish, the Wizards are going to be pretty damned good.

The team looked really good last night. I mean better than I was expecting. I now realize just how much impact Wall has on the game. Reminds me of summer league and how we went undefeated in games he played. Yi was much better than I expected and he was pretty good defensively. Javale actually had a solid game as well. The sky hooks were great to see. I’m not the biggest fan of Thornton and I’ll give Nick more than just one game (in which he was ice cold).

Thing is, I feel really encouraged by this win. Simply because when all the starters were on the floor (Wiz 1’s vs. Dal 1’s) the Wiz completely dominated them. It’s when we took out 3 or 4 of our starters at a time that the lead evaporated. So when our starters actually start playing regular season minutes we should be able to keep some leads over longer stretches. I’m still curious to see what the rookies add though.

And Wall, of course. But that’s a given.

I only caught bits of the game through the last 3 quarters, but it was really nice watching Hinrich play. He invests himself in the game both mentally and physically. From his days in Chicago, it’s clear that he’s not a lights-out shooter, but I really enjoyed seeing him defending a good guard on the other team (Kidd or Terry) and not cringing in fear of how badly he’s gonna get torched.

Yi pulled down a bunch of rebounds and finished strong on at least one play. I like that.

McGee seemed a lot less clueless and impatient on offense the few possessions I saw, but he still looks like he’s going for the style of blocked shots over the substance of getting himself in good defensive position.

I know he hit that last shot, but did you guys see him getting severely outplayed by Dee Brown for the 5 minutes preceding that? You remember how bad Dee Brown was, right? I like Hudson’s attitude, but I just don’t think he’s good enough to keep. I got the same impression in Summer League where he didn’t stand out the way decent NBA players usually do.

Wall looked fantastic, as expected. Dallas looks really old and didn’t seem to give a crap, but he outclassed pretty much everyone. Blatche and McGee both seem a little stronger, which is good. Other than that, I didn’t learn much. Yi, as he has for his whole career so far, looks like a guy with good skills who seems determined to take nothing but long 2’s (although I did like seeing the boards). I liked Hinrich, but I always have, and he’s kind of a known quantity anyway. Arenas looked pretty good on the catch-and-shoot, which is encouraging. I was disappointed not to see Booker out there — I really want to see what he looks like against NBA competition.