Would the Wizards have been better off shooting full court shots in their disastrous third quarter?

I'm not going to waste pixels telling you how bad it is to only make one field goal over the course of a full quarter.

Yes, the Golden State Warriors are the NBA's best defensive team, and yes, they also held the Toronto Raptors to a one field goal in a quarter performance earlier this month. So while last night's ineptitude wasn't unprecedented, it's still not something you can forget easily.

Things got so bad for the Wizards during that third quarter stretch that it got our own Akbar Naqvi to make a pretty bold claim:

If I took all fulllcourt shots in 2k, I don't even think I'd go 1/17

— Akbar Naqvi (@AkbarRazaNaqvi) March 24, 2015

Even though last night's game wrapped up around 1 a.m. EST, I just couldn't get this thought out of my head, so I had to try it out to see what would happen. Unfortunately, because I live on a blogger budget, I had to test out Akbar's theory with last year's roster in NBA 2K14. But as you'll see, the roster really doesn't matter here, because there was only one person on the game who should be taking all these full court shots.

As fans of the NBA 2K series know, the 1985-86 Atlanta Hawks are one of the historic teams you can play with in the game. Obviously, most people use the team so they can play with Dominique Wilkins, but that squad also includes current Wizards coach Randy Wittman. Thanks to the ability to edit rosters, you can swap out a current player for a historic one. All it takes is a simple transaction, so I tried to make the move that would least hinder the team's chances of winning:

Glen, I'm so, so sorry. That was more awkward for me than for you, I promise.

But now that we've got Randy Wittman on the roster, it was time to craft a strategy to maximize Wittman's potential to one-up the Wizards' third quarter performance. A lot of time and effort went into crafting the strategy, so I'll try to simplify the strategy as best I can for those of you who aren't basketball aficionados:

1. Get the ball to Randy Wittman before he crosses the mid-court line.
2. Wait for the defense to retreat to the other side of the court to get in defensive position.
3. Take what the defense has given up (a wide open full court shot).

While Wittman's efficiency in this offense wasn't great, the effort was clearly there. I mean, look at that follow-through. Look at how his leg flares out like Nolan Ryan unleashing a fastball. If Stephen Curry had come up to Wittman during the game and said "Hey, stop taking all these 70 footers, this is an affront to professional basketball!" you know virtual Randy Wittman would have put him in a headlock and given him shots to the noggin, Robin Ventura-style.

But enough about the intensity, let's take a look at the numbers from Wittman's 12 minute performance:

As you can see, with twice as many shots as the Wizards have over the same 12 minute span, Wittman made the same number of shots as the Wizards did in the third quarter last night. So clearly, despite what you might think, the Wizards were better off last night doing what they did than choosing to let virtual Randy Wittman chuck full court shots in the third quarter. Glad that myth has been debunked.

For those of you wondering, here's what Wittman's one field goal looked like. Note that Marcin Gortat was so excited about the successful shot he threw Jermaine O'Neal to the ground.