I honestly think that I blacked out at one point during the third quarter. In fact, I must have a history of blacking out during the 3rd quarter because this keeps happening again and again and again and again. Instead of the team that took the court during the first two quarters of play, the Wizards were obviously abducted and replaced by a local Pee-Wee team.
Yikes.
On a positive note....
If one were to watch this game from a player development standpoint, you would be exceedingly impressed at the strides that JaVale McGee has taken as a professional basketball player over the course of the last few games. This road trip has been a real eye opener on the possibility of the complete player that McGee can become when mentally focused as he relentlessly worked the entire evening on both the offensive and defensive ends of the floor. He exploited Marcin Gortat with both his drop step as well as his quick hook in the lane which left the floor bound Suns center looking helpless and ineffective. Its this type of development that Flip Saunders talked about last year when he discussed McGee having eight amazing plays out of a possible 250. Tonight, McGee had about 70 good possession out of the 110 he took part in, but one "McGee-like" play led to him sitting for a large portion of the game. This, in conjunction with the Suns switching to a zone defense, led to the Suns outscoring the Wizards 31-7 in the 3rd quarter.
Normally, this type of disciplinary action wouldn't bother me because a precedent must be set that ill-advised decisions will lead to a trip to the bench. However, it is disconcerting to see McGee sit on a night where the vast majority of his play was exceptional, while both Nick Young and Jordan Crawford both had moments that were arguably more frustrating than McGee's bouts of poor decision-making. Both went 1-4, shot early in the clock, and for the most looked like the act of passing the ball would cause their heads to blow up. Yet, because of their "offensive prowess" they were allowed to remain in the game while McGee sat pinned to the bench.
BNIE was at the game and will have his thoughts later.