Wizards decide to stop playing defense, lose to Suns
by Mike Prada on Jan 21, 2011 9:26 PM EST
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PrintThis was a really bad loss, probably worse than the Milwaukee game only because of the venue. There were a lot of disturbing trends. Among them (briefly):
- John Wall's utter lack of aggression. Wall had a lot of assists, but he has to realize that you have to be a threat to score and drive in this league. Early in the second quarter, he had a wide open layup, and instead decided to kick it out to Al Thornton for a 20-foot jumper. That was a harbinger, as he constantly looked to pass, even though Steve Nash was on him. For all of his speed, Wall is still not very good at being deceptive in the half court. Nash was able to stay in front of him a lot, and that shouldn't happen.
- Andray Blatche's continued inconsistency: Blatche started the game like gangbusters, but did nothing after the first quarter. His concentration completely waned in the second half, as he was the primary reason Channing Frye went bonkers from three. It's easier said than done to stay close to shooters, but you still have to find a way to do it, and he couldn't, consistently. He was correctly taken out, and then never got his game back offensively. It just goes to show how poorly he deals with adversity.
- JaVale McGee's lack of focus: Robin Lopez was killing him early, and while I'm not wild about pulling him for the entire second half, his play was pretty bad. He's so athletic, and can be a difference maker, but he still isn't doing it every night.
- The lack of defensive communication: Joe Glorioso of Wizards Extreme pointed this out on Twitter, but it's true - it didn't look like anyone was talking defensively. How this happens now is beyond me.
- Kirk Hinrich may be hurt: Michael Lee reports that he headed to the locker room and couldn't lift his arm. Paging Lester Hudson...
And now Boston is coming into town. Womp womp.
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AAAAAND
The Moral Victory Wizards of the Game Award goes to Nick Young, once again…
I'm going to vote for Kirk
Unless we disqualify him under the JaVale McGee “you limited your own playing time, so you don’t get to argue per minute stats” rule
Which shall hereafter be referred to
as the Javale McGee rule, for your fingers’ sake
by Bullet Nation in Exile on Jan 22, 2011 8:18 AM EST up reply actions
OVERALL..
flip had Ok rotations tonight( even though im baffled by javale sitting the whole 4th), wall has to learn how to finish and attack more! rashard gotta rest that knee(he cant hit sh!t right now) im loving seraphin as a back up 4/5 next season, nick played well, blatche plays depending on the score every night! martin needs to take ALL of thorntons minutes, and i pray we get something worthy from kirk at the deadline. here we come kanter/sullinger in the draft. LETS GO WIZ!
It's unbelievable
We have more rebounds, tie number of assists, more steals, less TO, more blocks…..and still lose by double figure.
Got killed by the 3s tonight.
Why is that Wall always gets around 10 assists in the first quarter and then ends up with 13-16 assists when the game finishes?
Because!..
everyone in the arena including the janitors figures out in the second half he only wants to pass instead of balancing between being aggressive to score and dish the ball when the D helps. Its starting to get old now.
i cant agree more with this
Other problems that contribute to this is washington’s players get tired very quickly and it shows with their shots throughout the game, passed the first quarter. Another problem is that when washington has something good, they shy away from it(such as the pick and roll with Wall and Mcgee[Nick Young same side to keep the defense from cheating in and helping with the pick and roll], and Nick Young(Nick started the game very hot and in the second half they shyed away from him and didnt get him the ball as much as he should have gotten.) Another thing that has plagued washington this year is their Pick and Roll defense! This has been pathetic at best, the bigs dont hedge hard enough to allow the guards to get over the screen. Or the guards try to send the ball handler back away from the screen allowing many things to happen(1. a one on one with our big guy 2. a dish to the screener through our defense which then makes for a 2 on 1 from the fouline 3. the ball is reversed and the defense is left scrambling to find a player to match up)
washington’s players get tired very quickly
another indictment of the training staff!
I think there is something to this though. I think Ernie needs to look at a new training staff, OR the coaches are not pushing the players to work on their endurance or strength.
As a note, the Wizards hired their current Head Athletic Trainer Eric Waters and Strength & Conditioning Coach Drew Cleary before the 2005-06 season. Not to get all blame-first but as a simple observation, that does seem to be about the period that Wizards players started dropping like flies.
by Emmet O'Neal on Jan 21, 2011 10:42 PM EST up reply actions
Flip Saunders just said in post-game
That players were asking to come out of the game. Tired. Named Wall….he said that they couldn’t keep up with the pace. So….I guess every team knows how to play against us now! (not that they didn’t before). It’s not like they played last night….if there’s any silver lining, the Celts are still playing now.
Hogs Haven. On Twitter. And Facebook.
beat me to it!
And they have a winning record….they are a bit of a schizophrenic team, very frustrating to watch at times. Bibby had no points and 1 assist, that is not what you want out of the pg position.
Wouldn't trade places with Hawks fans
That team has had the illusion of contention while never being a contender, and it is locked into the same first/second round ceiling they have been for years with no room for growth or improvement. Yikes
by Emmet O'Neal on Jan 21, 2011 10:46 PM EST up reply actions
Joe Johnson, what a mistake
You can say they had to do it, but that just doesn’t make sense to me. JJ isn’t a max player, he’s not even close. Signing Johnson just dooms the team to mid-round exits and wastes the primes of Smith and Horford, two of the best young players in the league. They should have just let Johnson go and played Crawford at the two. He’s expiring, so that gives you a ton of roster flexibility and plenty of cap space. It kills me to think about the potential they’re wasting. Without Johnson, they’d only have 45 mil in salary committed for next season. That’s plenty of cap space.
by zl on Jan 22, 2011 1:53 AM EST up reply actions
Well at least we aren't the Hawks or Raptors
They lost by 41 and 40 respectively, yikes!
Kirk is a sprained elbow
and doubtful for Boston, per Michael Lee tweet. Said he did everything left handed and couldn’t even put his shirt on.
When Wall passed up that layup mid-air in front of the basket
That was when I really started yelling at the tv screen. At that point, it really appeared that Wall was just trying to rack up assist numbers (which is easier said than done when you’re passing to Al Thornton on the right wing). We’ve seen him pass up open looks a lot, but passing when you’re two feet from the basket, in mid air, and no one’s contesting the shot? That is beyond poor judgment; that is completely insane. Completely, utterly insane.
Wall, for all of his great attributes, either doesn’t know how to score, or (more likely) is just uncommitted to it. Once the game was out of reach, he scored easily on a couple of drives to the hoop, but it wasn’t for lack of defense.
I guess the first thing is, he needs to start hitting open jumpers consistently. Then defenders will have to guard him more closely and he’ll have an easier time getting around them. Right now they can cheat, because they know he won’t shoot the ball, or if he does, that he’ll probably miss. When he drives to the hoop, the opposition is ready for it, and he’s forced to reset, and usually without much time left on the clock.
Not even because I wasn't able to watch the game
But I think I’m running out of things to say.
One thing though I’m puzzled about is John Wall on offense and his defender’s ability to inexplicably be in front of him most times:
-Nash is considerably slower but he knows how to maneuver around whatever pick is being set for him and is much more decisive coming off them.
-Andre Miller gets to the rack a lot also and he has the wheels of a Geo Metro with a dead battery. He uses the hesitation move well though (even though guys shouldn’t be jumping for his jumper, they do)
-There are countless more examples but Wall has the speed of guys like Rose and Westbrook so I just don’t understand how he can’t beat his man off the dribble (especially when that man is sometimes Nash, Boykins, Calderon, etc.)
The Wizards are trying. They are just like, a bad team. They have to take care of the basics to become better. Rebound consistently. Be quicker in your rotations on defense. Protect the ball. Hit Free Throws. Make the extra pass. Don’t dribble for 15 seconds and pass the ball off to a guy late in the shot clock, when you know he is not gonna have a good look. When you have the last possession of the half,be quick! Don’t worry so much about milking the clock too much. When you do, it ruins the possession and you have to throw up a bad shot. The Wizards have to learn how to do these things consistently.
Almost no close games anywhere....
Seraphin was apparently the saving grace of the debacle in DC.
But they, even the European League team in basketball crazed Vilnius (whose point guard is Khalid El-Amin) got whupped at home by Drew Nicholas and bunch of Greeks.
Too bad we did not insist on Gortat in the Gil deal. Forget Robin Lopez. Marcin kicked butt for the Suns at Verizon last night!
It was once said that you could only get to heaven by flying through Atlanta, and my guess after that hosing is that Hinrich is about to get a layover there.
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