The Miami Heat probably thought they could come into Verizon Center and play hard for just one quarter to get a win, and that's exactly what ended up happening. The Heat turned up the screws defensively in the fourth quarter, turning a slim six-point lead after three quarters into a 17-point victory.

This loss wasn't a matter of a lack of effort or even execution. The Wizards simply are too young and have too little talent to compete when the Heat dial up the pressure like they did. There were plenty of Wizards players who had good games in the first three quarters, the kind of performances that the coaching staff could build on going forward. They can choose to accept that and look at this game as a positive despite the score, and I don't think I'd argue too much. Still, the fourth quarter was troubling, as was Miami's ability to coast and turn it on.

I can accept a lot of fan's conclusions of this one. On the one hand, we know this Wizards team isn't as talented as the Heat. On the other hand, this game got out of hand really quickly and exposed the limitations of all of the players on the Wizards' roster, John Wall included. It'll be interesting to see how the organization portrays this loss.

More notes below the jump:

Continue reading this post »

The Washington Wizards fell victim to the Jeremy Lin show. Hard to really come away from this game with any other conclusion. Lin showed the world again why he's legitimate, and the Knicks completely picked the Wizards apart in the pick and roll in winning, 107-93. It ended up being one of the most embarrassing losses for the Wizards all season, if only because of the inevitable Lin vs. John Wall framing that tells us absolutely nothing about why this game was lost.

Wall had 29 points and one turnover in the entire game. Wall was not the reason the Wizards lost. In fact, without Wall, they probably lose by 30. The Wizards' pick and roll coverage was awful, and the big men were mostly to blame. Lin can certainly change speeds beautifully, but the Wizards' big men never were able to prevent him from getting inside the free-throw line extended. Proper pick and roll coverage involves Wall pressuring the ball, the big man stepping out and beating the guard to the spot and Wall recovering quickly, in that order. The second part of the chain kept breaking down, and that is why the Wizards lost.

Credit Lin, of course. He's definitely good. But the Wizards as a team didn't show up, outside of Wall and Trevor Booker. Let's not get caught up in the narrative framing here.

More notes:

Continue reading this post »

A win's a win. That's the mantra the Washington Wizards have to accept after nearly blowing an 18-point lead against the Toronto Raptors in a wild game in front of very few people at the Verizon Center. If winning close games yields character, the Wizards showed some character, even against an undermanned Raptors team missing leading scorer Andrea Bargnani. The Wizards stepped up defensively in overtime on Jerryd Bayless, who killed them in the fourth quarter, and snuck away with a 111-108 win.

There will be plenty of time to wonder how, exactly, the Wizards nearly let an inferior team sneak away with a win on their home floor. That's for another time, though. For now, given the state of the team, it's nice to see John Wall star, Trevor Booker play to the best of his abilities and Nick Young knock down some shots. The Wizards can't complain about wins, and neither can we.

More notes below the jump.

Continue reading this post »

Items which the Washington Wizards were not allowed to bring through Canadian customs

1. The ability to grab the orange spherical object;

2. The desire to consistently keep moving through their offensive sets;

3. The intelligence to stop Jose Calderon from initiating another pick and roll;

4. Their recognizance that the only thing Linas Kleiza has ever been able to do is shoot the three;

5. Their hearts.

I think we are well past the point of pointing fingers at who is responsible for the mess that we currently find ourselves in as a franchise and I'm running out of humorous ways to describe what was another poor performance from the team tonight. Two things are immediately apparent, the first is that this team is not prepared on a day in day out basis to come out compete against other NBA squads. I can tolerate getting blown out by elite teams, I can even tolerate getting blown out by veteran teams like the Magic, but to lose to a Raptors team that is missing their best player and to be outrebounded by a nearly two to one margin before garbage time is unacceptable. John Wall last season kept repeating the mantra after losses that the team didn't "have no heart and it didn't have no fight." Well tonight is Exhibit A in the fact that the Wizards waltzed into the Air Canada Center and expected to get a win, and got pounded down by a team that for all intents and purposes is inferior talent wise, but obviously dedicates the time to learn offensive sets and run a passable pick and roll.

The second thing is that we are now 25 games into the season, and the starters still like a group of guys who just met in the rec league. Their seems to be little to no trust in the starting unit, and whoever is inserted into that unit seems to immediately contract the deadly disease of "standing around and looking disinterested."

I don't want to take anything away from the Raptors, as they executed their offensive gameplan perfectly, and worked the Wizards over on the defensive end to the point where the Wizards basically cried out "no mas" and settled for crappy jumpers and ill-advised threes.

Something needs to change. This isn't about "trusting the process" or "allowing the players to gel." What we have is group of players who have no ideas what their roles are and a centerpiece who might be quickly becoming perturbed that there doesn't seem to be any help on the way. We have a gunner who the team lowballed and is basically getting run out of town, as well as a center whose erratic play makes it almost impossible to be able to give a ballpark estimate on what fair recompense is. We don't have a Ricky Rubio or a Jonas Valanciunas stashed overseas ready to ride in and save us.

This is what we have. And currently, what we have doesn't play very well together.

Site Note: I try not to criticize the zebras as a rule, because I believe that in 98% of NBA games, the team which plays better gets the win. However, it should be noted that tonight's game was a travesty of officiating, in which the Dwight Howard received "Dwyane Wade '06" treatment." It is games like this that infuriate fans, and only adds fuel to the fire that NBA has a strict divide between the "haves" and "have nots."

I'm sure that somewhere out there, Ernie Grunfeld is lighting up a nice cigar, pouring himself a scotch, and murmuring to himself "I told you Sean Fagan, I told you about my drafting prowess. How dare you challenge my international scouting prowess?"

How dare I indeed.

Tonight, Kevin Seraphin revealed a large part of the high hopes the Wizards FO holds for the second year player. The lovingly nicknamed "Manbearpig" mixed it up with Dwight Howard, boarded like a monster, and even demonstrated a nice little two man game with a resurrected Jordan Crawford. In fact, the entire Wizards bench mob played out of their minds on evening, providing a majority of the scoring, showing a propensity towards passing the ball, and hounded the Magic (with the noted exception of Ryan Anderson) into taking forced jumpers.

So yes, unleash the manbearpig.

(End positive pixels.)

Wicked pixel warning ahead.

The flip side of this is that the three key starters for the Wizards (Wall/McGee/Young) played exceedingly poorly in almost every facet of the game. Except for a brief flurry by Wall towards the end in which he scored a layup, hounded Turkoglu, and then found Lewis on a corner three, it was rather a quiet night for the second year starter. Worse still, Wall seemed to be playing at half speed for most of the game and appeared to be visibly detached during the third quarter when the Wizards needed him the most.

Young and McGee for their parts also put in terrible days at the office. Young completely blew up in the 4th quarter, but its hard to excuse his breaking the offense in the 1st three quarters of the game.

I will be less harsh on McGee, because some of the fouls that were called on him for guarding Dwight Howard were borderline unbelievable. However, he completely shrank from his matchup with Howard (one again) and made the same repeated errors that necessitate his immediate benching. I'm sure that we will see a resurgent McGee against a weak Toronto frontline, but tonight was a gutcheck where McGee failed to step up.

In the end, you have to question Randy Wittman's decision to leave Booker, Seraphin and Crawford out of the game as long as he did in the fourth quarter. Accountability was the hallmark of the 1st half, I am unsure as to why that didn't carry over to the second.

The Chicago Bulls' formula is simple: defend like crazy and ride Derrick Rose to a win. They did just that against the Washington Wizards in a 98-88 victory at the Verizon Center on Monday night. Credit the Wizards for never giving up, but the Bulls pretty much took control in the third quarter in the win.

In so many ways, the Bulls hit right at the Wizards' weaknesses. Their defense closed down the paint, contesting every layup and forcing the Wizards into so many misses around the rim. With nowhere else to turn, the Wizards had to rely on tough jumpers, some of which went in, but most of which were launched in cringe-worthy fashion. On the other end, the Wizards fought, but committed several errors in allowing Kyle Korver to get open and letting Rose get to his comfort spots. It's hard to say the Wizards played poorly defensively, because Rose did hit some absurd shots, but whenever they did make a mistake, the Bulls made them pay.

You do have to give the Wizards credit for the fourth quarter, where they fought back and cut the lead to single digits. That's something they can build on. Alas, though, it was too little too late.

More notes (in chronological order) below the jump.

Continue reading this post »

You live by the BJ Mullens, you die by the BJ Mullens!

I am not sure how many Knute Rockne speeches on CAN give during the course of the season, but I am fairly certain that the Wizards coaching staff could read the Bell Jar to the team and get a better reaction than whatever is currently being said. Flat in the third, let a bad team crawl back into the game, and barely got out of of Dodge with a win.....

Coach WIttman: "You guy are doing all the right things, I just want you to do them a bit less."

Wizards: (Blank stares)

Coach Wittman: "Now go out there and smoke them if you got them!"

Wizards: (Blank stares)

If I were the coach, (and thank goodness I'm not), my entire halftime speech would consist of screaming BJ MULLENS until they realized that what they were doing was wrong,

OK, so it was the Bobcats with a star turn from BJ Mullens. But a win is a win is a win. Go out and celebrate tonight, because tomorrow there will be inevitable drama.

One brief game note:

• I'm not sure what is going on with Andray Blatche. He appeared to staredown Wittman after getting pulled from the game and basically jogged up and down the court. Mike Lee later reported that Blatche was out with a "strained" left calf. Hmmmm I say. Hmmmmmmmmm.

Steve Buchantz in the 4th quarter: The bottom has dropped out for Washington!

Another blowout, so why do I feel so positive?

One of my enduring concerns during the Flip Saunders era was that the Wizards were employing a coach who attempted to extract chamber music out of essentially what was a rock band. Like a well tuned orchestra, for Saunders offense to work, every instrument needed to be finely tuned to hit the exact notes at the perfect moment.

Unfortunately, the Wizards are a little less Mozart and a bit more Germs. And tonight, Randy Wittman tapped into his inner "punk's not dead" and let the Wizards go essentially nuts for an entire game. The result, like many punk (or hardcore shows) may have not been the most technically proficient show you have seen, but it certainly was exhilarating and a change from a norm. It was sloppy, raucous, and loud, but it was definitively more "Wizards" than the previous 17 games. We all laughed at the possibility of "changing the pace," but it says something when one's lead singer (John Wall) has to take a blow during the first quarter due to the pace of play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1mU0cTyFKQ

Is this a lasting recipe for success? I doubt it. But its a change and the Wizards seem more comfortable playing this style of ball. So let's see a few more games played in 4/4 time (Eds: Note: worst typo ever - thanks Elvin!), rather than the stately waltz in which we were engaged early in the season.

So its going to be sloppy and there are going to be a quite a few more blowouts coming to us this year. I'm resigned to the fact because we don't have the right lineup of band members. But somewhere, within the the complete beat down we just received from Houston, I can at least see a style of play I can get behind.

Notes after the break.

• The big story tonight was obviously Jan Vesely getting the starting nod tonight. Vesely, if anything, fits the new punk ethos. All over the place, slightly out of control, but fun to watch.
• The second biggest story? John Wall everyone. Reports of his demise might have been exaggerated. I'm not sure if this pace is going to make him a better point guard, but this free flowing style seems to suit his development at the moment. Wall appears to spending less time thinking about initiating the offense, and more time just "doing it." Going forward, I think the rest will come.
• The third biggest story. Kevin Seraphin lost six wisdom teeth. OK, not the third biggest thing. But six?
• If the young Wizards are punk rock, then Rashard Lewis is playing some easy listening music out there. He appeared to be disinterested in taking part in the night's proceedings. It might be time to take away his Kenny G CDs.
• Frenetic, all over the place defense. One has to appreciate it.
• However, frenetic, all over the place play leads to a huge amount of turnovers. Not so much a fan of those.
• I'm sure what to make of the "Heroes Three" tonight. When considering Blatche/Young/McGee, both Young and McGee excelled at the things we have come to expect, but still frustrated with several miscues throughout the game. McGee came out with a low motor at first, quickly adjusted and brought some energy and set a nice pick, and then reverted to wandering around the paint and losing Dalembert. Actually check that, McGee completely fell off the rails and appeared as if he wanted no part of Sam Dalembert. Young hit some tough shots, but his myopia on the offensive end is becoming a distraction. And Blatche...I don't know. He is still pressing, and hopefully his move to the bench brings some aspect of his game back.
• Honestly, its the oldest member of the band that are proving to be the biggest problem. I think that the Heroes Three need to go gig elsewhere.
• And then like all good shows....thing broke down completely three quarters through.
• Unfortunately, the Wizards lack a lead guitarist. Or in this case, someone who can put the ball through the basket. Raw energy and pathos will only get you so far. Honestly, I've made my bones with this and its not a problem I see the Wizards solving this season. Give me effort through the 4th quarter, and I will spare the "wicked pixels."
  

So do you enjoy the first two quarter of in the red play? Or are you disappointed when things fell apart in the second half? I think I'll have my answer tomorrow in Charlotte.