Briefing: Too many turnovers, not enough talent doom Wizards

by Jake Whitacre on Mar 4, 2010 8:21 AM EST in Links

When Talent Trumps Effort - Brian Jackson, Fast Break

Washington got off to an nice start with Andray Blatche and Randy Foye combining to score 17 points in the first quarter, but it was pretty much all down hill from there. The Bucks closed out the first on a 12-5 run and took an eight-point lead into the locker rooms at the half. Still very much in contention the Wizards came out uncharacteristically flat in the third quarter. Look no further than the turnover column. Washington mustered as many turnovers as points, 12, and ended the third with zero assists. Meanwhile Milwaukee would score 21 points in the quarter and pull away for good.

Wizards can't cool off the surging Bucks - Michael Lee, Washington Post

The Wizards have managed to remain competitive the past two weeks, compensating for a lack of skill with will. But Coach Flip Saunders criticized his team for not being aggressive -- which contributed to 21 turnovers on the night -- and Blatche felt the team took a step backward on Wednesday. "We was just playing sloppy. We wasn't playing how Flip taught us, the way Flip coached us," Blatche said. "We worked too hard to let any team beat up on us like that. We're a good enough team that no team should have us down by 20."

Andray Blatche and Greivis Vasquez have rehabilitated their images with stretches of incredible basketball - Michael Wilbon, Washington Post

With the chance to play, Blatche is finally doing what the team has asked him to do for awhile. Word is he's in the weight room regularly, is practicing harder, trying on the defensive end. In the victory over the Nets the other night, Blatche became the first Washington player to have 15 baskets and 15 rebounds in a game since Tom Gugliotta did it for the Bullets in November of 1992. In that same game he became the first player this season to post numbers of at least 36 points, 15 rebounds, four assists, two steals and two blocked shots in one game. Nobody had done it in a Bullets/Wizards uniform since Elvin Hayes 35 years ago. The pouting is over because Blatche doesn't have to worry that Wizards management, including the team's trainers, only worries about the star players. Hell, he is the star player. Yes, it's preposterous that Blatche thought that in the first place, but this is what talented kids, especially those who jump straight to the NBA from high school, think about when they don't immediately get all the minutes and shots they want.

Lack of scoring punch hurts in Milwaukee - Michael Lee, Wizards Insider

Thornton had his first bad game as a Wizard, scoring just two points on 1 of 4 shooting. He was scoreless in the first half. Thornton said afterward that he wasn't aggressive, which has been his calling card - even in Los Angeles, where often was a bit too aggressive on the offensive end. He just didn't appear to have his usual burst. "It was one of those nights," Thornton said.

Salmons scores 22, Bucks blast Wizards 100-87 - Colin Fly, Associated Press

Andray Blatche and Randy Foye scored 18 points each for the Wizards, but Milwaukee got contributions from all over. Carlos Delfino had 13 points and 11 rebounds, Ersan Ilyasova had 19 points, 10 rebounds and six assists and veteran Jerry Stackhouse added 13 points. The last time these two teams met here, Washington won 109-97 on Dec. 23. Caron Butler scored 25, Antawn Jamison 23 and Gilbert Arenas 18 for the Wizards that night.

Bucks Beat Wizards, No One’s Thrilled: Bucks 100 – Wizards 87 - Jeremy, Bucksketball

"Turk-ish Thun-der" was the chant that came roaring from Squad Six with five and a half minutes to go in the game, this time with more purpose than usual. Ersan Ilyasova, who the rowdy group has taken to calling "Turkish Thunder" really brought some thunder on a transition dunk that fell just out of the reach of shot-blocking machine JaVale McGee. This was just one of many fine moments for Ilyasova in this one though, he finished with 19 points (7-13 FG 1-3 3 FG), 10 rebounds and a career high six assists.

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I Know I'm Standing on an Island Here

But I still don’t think talent is the problem for the Wizards right now. I think Blatche, McGee, Thornton, Foye, nad Miller are all very talented players. I think they lost because they played sloppy, lazy basketball, not because they didn’t have enough talent to compete.

"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 Mar 4, 2010 8:40 AM EST reply actions

The island from LOST.

by disgrunted on Mar 4, 2010 9:25 AM EST up reply actions

They have enough talent to compete

But they don’t have enough talent to overcome silly mistakes and sloppy play. Good teams can still pull out wins on bad nights, the Wizards aren’t at that level, at least in my opinion.

Bullets Forever: A blog dedicated to the Washington Wizards with analysis, commentary, and more YouTube videos than your eyes can handle.

by Jake Whitacre on Mar 4, 2010 10:25 AM EST up reply actions

I Would Agree With This

I would simply substitute the word “skill” for the word “talent” in your first sentence above. See my comment below.

"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 Mar 4, 2010 10:51 AM EST up reply actions

I agree to a point...

but I think that sloppy basketball was brought on by a hustling, hard working team that suddenly found themselves down by 8 at the half – after playing decent basketball. They were STILL down…. even after trying to out-work the other team.

Unlike a lot of teams in the NBA, Milwaukee plays hard every night – so the Wizards were not going to “out work” the Bucks. So, in the third quarter, some of the Wizards players tried to do too much. Effort plays, but not smart plays. They tried to pinpoint passes, leading to turn overs… They tried to make an advanced move in the lane, leading to a travel, or offensive foul. They took a shot from a little bit out of their range. Typical for a young, developing team.

Meanwhile, the hard-working veteran Bucks.. (Delfino, Stackhouse, Bogut, and Salmons) said “thank you”, I’ll take that easy play… “thank you”, I’ll take the ball after your turn over…. and ran away from the Wiz in the 3rd quarter.

Bullets Forever - where "Dagger ! " happens......

by Rook6980 on Mar 4, 2010 10:27 AM EST up reply actions

Good Points

I agree with most of what you had to say, but I make the distinction between skill and talent. It’s like a container: there is what it holds, and then there is what it could possibly hold. By saying the Wizards lack talent, I interpret that to mean that they don’t have the capacity to play as well as a team like Milwaukee. I prefer to think that our talent just isn’t very developed.

Meanwhile, I see the Bucks as a team that Scott Skiles has really molded and trained well. They are well-skilled, playing great basketball, and have a chance to do some real damage in the playoffs. Yet other than Jennings and maybe Ersan Ilyasova, I really don’t see them getting much better. Their core right now appears to be established veterans, not young guys like we have in our front court.

"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 Mar 4, 2010 10:49 AM EST up reply actions

Mbah a Moute as well

The Bucks also have max cap room in 2011, which makes them interesting.

You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.

by Mike Prada on Mar 4, 2010 11:02 AM EST up reply actions

You Could Say Any Team With Lots of Cap Room is Interesting

But based on the current products, I would take our young guys over theirs. Of course, they have the much better team overall right now, and I wouldn’t mind picking off one of their guys (Luke Ridnour) in free agency to be a solid backup to Gil, assuming we don’t win the Wall sweepstakes.

"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 Mar 4, 2010 11:13 AM EST up reply actions

It's an interesting call

In 2011, they have Bogut, Jennings, Ilyasova, Mbah a Moute, their pick this year and maybe Carlos Delfino, plus max cap room.

In 2010, we have Blatche, McGee, Arenas, Thornton, Young and our higher pick this year.

Bogut and Jennings are definite building blocks for them, whereas I’m only 100% sure about Blatche for us. However, we also have a higher pick in 2010, and if Arenas comes back and comes back well, that definitely props us up.

You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.

by Mike Prada on Mar 4, 2010 11:24 AM EST up reply actions

cuppett

my first post on BF like 4 years ago was a response to you. you were saying how if only the wiz didn’t take nights off against the bad teams they would have been a 50+ win team easy. (or something to that effect.) i think i produced numbers to show, on the whole, the wiz back then took care of the bad teams the vast majority of the time, and counteracted a few bad losses here and there with some unexpected wins here and there. (also that the wiz did particularly badly against teams with similar records, i.e., other .500 teams).

anyhow, it seems relevant today to bring that up, since when we lose, it’s still predominantly “because they played sloppy, lazy basketball”.

it’s just such a harsh perspective. and it discounts what the other team might have done better than us or might have actively taken away from us that we couldn’t find the answer to. it’s not always as simple as effort and focus, in particular when the other team comes out with the same intensity.

i don’t know. it’s just… we’re like 7 games in with the new hungry guys and you’re already condemning their effort.

by DarrellWalkerFan on Mar 4, 2010 5:53 PM EST up reply actions

Maybe

I will point out that I defended this team’s effort in our first 3 losses since the All-Star break. It’s one thing to play poorly because you aren’t getting open and have to take very tough shots. I can live with that with a young team. But turning the ball over a lot because of telegraphed or lazy passes is something that even bad teams should be able to prevent. I saw a lot of that on Wednesday. I also saw guys who were running hard the first 7 games standing still for the first 3 or 4 seconds of the shot clock, and when they did run they didn’t appear to my eyes to have the same sense of urgency that they had in their previous games. Maybe it was just my perception, but I’m only commenting on how I think based on what I’ve observed.

As for giving credit to the other team, see my post a couple of comments above. I think the Bucks are a really good team right now, and that Skiles has them playing really well. My intent was not to discredit their play, but to defend the talent level I think this team has and also to point out that we could have played more competitively had we not been sloppy with the basketball. By the way, I’m not the only one who observed sloppy play from our team, here is what our new superstar (tongue in cheek when I say this, just a little bit) had to say about our play on Wednesday:

"We have worked too hard to let any team to get up on us like that," Blatche noted. "We are a good enough team that we should not get down by twenty points to any team. We were just playing sloppy. We did not play the way Flip (Wizards head coach) taught us."

I happen to agree 90% with Blatche, which I know is an opinion in the small minority. I don’t think that the Wizards are a bad team that is vastly overachieving. I think they are a decent team (here is where the 10% disagreement comes in, I wouldn’t call them “good”, but decent or slightly above-average) that is simply achieving. I think they could have been competitive had they simply cut down on some of the mental mistakes they were making.

Tonight will be a new test. If the Wizards can win or stay competitive with the Bucks, I think it will support my point. If they get blown out again, I may be more inclined to believe what everyone else is telling me.

As for my argument with you from years back, I actually remember that one. My perception of our team back then was that we would play up to the elite teams, but down to the poor teams. One game that stands out in my mind was when we played Denver after Carmelo got suspended from fighting with the Knicks. We had blown that same team out 5 days earlier, when Carmelo was playing. We were just coming off a big win over the Lakers, during which Gil lit them up for 60 points on insane “I don’t think he has a conscience” shooting. I thought we would overmatch the undermanned Nuggets. Instead, we let (wait for it…) Earl Boykins explode for 29 points off the bench to lead all scorers and take control of the game. That game still pisses me off when I think about it.

Anyway, I remember you doing your homework on our record against sub-.500 teams, but I don’t recall whether or not you were able to present evidence as to whether other good teams had better records against sub.500 teams. What was the “vast majority” again? 65%? 70%? Was that better or worse than other good teams at the time? I can’t remember how that argument ended.

"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 Mar 5, 2010 10:30 AM EST up reply actions

If the Wizards can win or stay competitive with the Bucks, I think it will support my point.

you are right about that.

i agree they played sloppy. blatche speaks to that. but lazy is a much different story. i think the bucks had a lot to do with the sloppiness.

i think our talent level is better than most outsiders would give us credit for, but like you point out, our skill level, and our ability to play as a team aren’t there yet. and how could they be at this point? so again, sloppy yes, but lazy is a different story.

if we can address the things we struggled with wednesday, i agree that we can win tonight, but if the bucks don’t let down, it’ll be an uphill climb. the major thing we have going for us is that miller and thornton were taken out of the game completely on wednesday. hopefully they get that sorted out tonight.

as for the old argument, a .700+ winning percentage is pretty darn good against any set of nba teams. it’s the nba. every win is an achievement, just ask the nets. i don’t have time, or a database, to run those numbers for the whole league to see where the wiz stacked up against other teams with similar records in that regard. (well, scratch that, obviously, based on my volume of posts on this site, i do have the time, but not the inclination, sorry.)

but regardless, i think your angst toward that denver game is a microcosm of where i think you get over the top. we won 3 of 4 on that road trip, with HUGE wins at the lakers and at the suns. that denver game was a back to back (in denver, which, along with utah, is one of the toughest places to play in the league), the night after we beat LA, in overtime, where gilbert played maybe the best game he’s ever played. most of the time, if you output 130% one night, the next night you might regress to the mean. that’s just how it works. i think most people would look at that trip as a MAJOR success, one of the best and most memorable west coast trips in wizards history. but you seem to dwell on the letdown against the nuggets. again, you’re obviously an intelligent dude, on some level you must realize how extremely harsh that is.

by DarrellWalkerFan on Mar 5, 2010 11:39 AM EST up reply actions

Perhaps

But I just think it would have taken only half the effort they expended to beat the Lakers in order to beat that Melo-less Nuggets team back then, but they completely mailed it in. You are right that this bothers me a lot. I also think it was a great road trip, but one of the reasons I think the Wizards never advanced past 45 wins was because they used great performances as excuses for taking games off against mediocre and poor teams. I would rather have a team that plays hard every night. That’s how you get teams that win 8 – 15 games in a row, they bring either their A or B game almost every night. The Wizards back then would routinely give their A+ game one night and their D game the next. So you are right about me wanting a scrappier, harder working team. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to add more skill and talent, however.

"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 Mar 5, 2010 11:49 AM EST up reply actions

i believe

but won’t bother to check the facts, that one of the best runs in the past decade or two was the kobe/shaq lakers, who won 30 out of 31 games or so. the one loss came 15 games into the streak. the team they lost to, of all teams, was the strickland/richmond/howard wizards in dc (for their only loss in 31 games).

that wizards team was AWFUL, so the lakes definitely didn’t even bring their B game that night.

in short, it happens.

now, to win 30 out of 31, they brought at least their B game (maybe that teams’s C game even) about every night, yeah, but they were also a hell of a lot better than the wizards have ever been. we’ve never even sniffed a team that good here.

to your example, i think a scrappy houston team went on a roll a couple years back, but again, that’s the exception rather than the rule. even the historically good C’s from a couple years ago lost a couple to the jason richardson bobcats. in an 82 game schedule, stuff happens.

i hear your argument that maybe the wiz did it more than other teams, i won’t opine either way on that, but if you’re not going to cut the team slack for that denver game, of all games, then i doubt you’re ever going to cut the team any slack.

by DarrellWalkerFan on Mar 5, 2010 1:51 PM EST up reply actions

The Denver Game Was But One Example

It was the easiest to remember because of how short-manned that Denver team was. I would give them slack for that game if it wasn’t symptomatic of a bigger problem I was witnessing. I would point to other examples of great teams going on great runs – Phoenix had several 10+ win streaks over the past several seasons, ditto Dallas, the Lakers, etc., etc.

My point was that the really good teams manage to bring their good games consistently, and I was frustrated that the Wizards could never seem to reach that level. You are right that those teams were a hell of a lot better than anything we sniffed, but I guess I just kept wanting to believe that we could be that good, and was consistently frustrated when we couldn’t.

"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 Mar 5, 2010 3:28 PM EST up reply actions