Keys to the Palace: Beal shines despite the Wizards’ poor post-All Star Break start

The Wizards lost to the 76ers and Jazz in their first two games after the All-Star Break. It’s their first losing streak since they lost two in a row on January 2 and 3.

Since the Wizards were winless last week, we can’t give out keys like we did for most of the past two or three months. But this past week, I was disappointed because most of the starters played poorly. The bench has been weak for most of the season, but the reserves should get a little reprieve because two players were still getting up to speed.

Let’s get to the roll call from Keys down to lockouts:

Key to the Palace

Bradley Beal, 31 ppg, 3 apg, 3.5 rpg

Beal shot over 50 percent from the field in each game last week. His best performance was a 40 point outburst against the Sixers.

Guest Passes

John Wall, 26 ppg, 12.5 apg, 5.5 rpg

Wall was a bit too turnover prone for my liking last week (7.5 TO/game), which is why he didn’t earn a key.

Bojan Bogdanovic, 8.5 ppg, 2.5 rpg

Bogey’s (that’s his nickname?) had a double bogey in his first appearance for Washington in the Sixers game. He showed why he’s acquired though in the Jazz game though when he scored 15 points and made three of his six threes:

It’s going to take a few games before we know what Bogdanovic will do on a game to game basis. But let’s hope that his performance in the Jazz game is a sign of things to come.

Ian Mahinmi, 4 ppg, 2.5 rpg

Mahinmi scored a season high 7 points and grabbed two rebounds in 16 minutes of action in the Jazz game. I just hope he’s able to do more than this on a night to night basis...

Lockouts

Markieff Morris, 10.5 ppg, 5 rpg

Morris averaged more fouls per game than rebounds. He was also ejected from the Jazz game after he fouled out in the fourth quarter Maybe he’s just getting back into regular season mode, but he’s not playing like the Keef we’ve been accustomed to in the last few months.

Otto Porter, 6.5 ppg, 5.5 rpg, 3.5 spg

Porter’s bright spot was his steals total. Otherwise, he was ineffective on the court. The Wizards depend on him to be an efficient shooter. Last week, he shot 33.3 percent from the field and 14.3 percent from three.

Marcin Gortat, 8.5 ppg, 9.5 rpg

Like Porter, Gortat has been very reliable this season to the point where we just assumed he’d get a double double every night. I’m okay with Gortat not getting a double double every night, especially with Ian Mahinmi back. But he made less than a third of his shots for the week, and missed a number of easy buckets.

Kelly Oubre, 3.5 ppg, 0.5 apg

Oubre had a subpar week shooting the ball and also had the worst plus/minus differential on the team. He also averaged 14 minutes a game, so it’s not like this is a statistical outlier or anything like that. Even though he’s a bench player, we expect Oubre to be more efficient than he was the last couple weeks..

Trey Burke, 2.4 ppg, 0.5 apg

Burke played a total of 15 minutes last week and he shot the ball six times. Only one of them went in.

I get that Burke probably feels uneasy about the Wizards shopping him last week. To be honest, he could be released if the Wizards sign another. But regardless, this isn’t the way a player should leave.

Not enough time for an evaluation

Jason Smith, Tomas Satoransky, Sheldon McClellan, and Daniel Ochefu played one game last week and not enough minutes for me to judge them. Chris McCullough did not play in any games last week. Danuel House is still on a D-League assignment.