Wizards vs. Pistons preview: Washington finishes a brutal stretch of games Saturday

The Washington Wizards (33-26) play the Detroit Pistons (23-35) at 7 p.m. Saturday at Verizon Center. You can watch the game on CSN or listen to it on the radio at 99.1 FM. Saturday's game finishes a four game in five nights stretch, where Washington has gone 0-3 so far.

The Wizards and Pistons have split the season series, 1-1. On November 12, 2014, the Wizards beat them 107-103 at Verizon Center. However, the Pistons had their way last Sunday, when they blew out the Wizards 106-89.

Injuries

For the Wizards, Bradley Beal, Paul Pierce, and Kris Humphries are questionable for tonight's game, and I don't expect all three to play. For the Pistons, Brandon Jennings will be out due to a torn achilles tendon last January.

The Wizards really sucked during their six-game losing streak

Okay, that's obvious. But here are some numbers for you to see just how bad they have been among all NBA teams.

I usually look at Basketball Reference's Four Factors numbers for individual games and overall season figures. But to get a clearer sample, I used NBA.com's figures, which use some different metrics for free throw rates and turnovers. Nevertheless, it paints a very ugly picture on how the Wizards performed during the current six-game losing streak:

NBA.com/Stats figures for games played from February 10 to February 27, 2015. Numbers in parentheses are rankings within the NBA.

The Wizards aren't just among the NBA's worst on offense, but they're also among the worst on defense. As you can see, they aren't making shots efficiently, they aren't getting to the free throw line at a low rate, and they turn the ball a lot on offense, that's bad enough.

But the Wizards also allow their opponents to score efficiently, get to the free throw line very often, and they don't force many turnovers. The end result is that the Wizards have the worst point differential (-15.3 ppg) among all NBA teams during their current six-game losing streak.

Season Ticket Renewals

I'm going to preface this section by saying this. Monumental Sports was going to have renewal campaigns during this time of year, whether the Wizards are on a six game losing or a winning streak. But that said, this is the first home game since prices were announced last Wednesday.

I wonder what Monumental Sports' account reps can say to get people to put down 20 to 30 or more percent more money for their 2015-16 Wizards season tickets at least right now besides saying, "Trust me, things will get better."

Who will win?

I hate to say it, but the Wizards have been broken as of late, and I don't see them winning this game. I'd like to be proven wrong of course, but I'm not confident that they can.

If the Wizards lose, is this Randy Wittman's last game?

No, I don't see it happening, even though I want a head coaching change right now. CSN Washington's J. Michael reiterated that Wittman's job appears safe for the time being and elaborated on that earlier this morning. In addition to Wittman's piece, he also mentioned that John Wall's ankle is still swollen and Bradley Beal's absence doesn't help things.