Official Thread - Wizards vs Thunder (1/21/15)

[Illmatic12]

I'm starting to lose my patience with Beal and no amount of "He's only 21" thought therapy is working. He can't put the ball on the floor, and when he does he dribbles into traps and ends up turning the ball over, he can't shoot a midrange shot worth a damn or any shot inside the 3pt line with any reasonable consistency, and when his 3pt shot isn't falling he's damn near unwatchable. His good games are far too few and far too apart. I cringe now every time someone talks about backcourts of the future and bring up our guys because I know only one guy is holding up his end.

Someone talk me off the ledge on Beal...

Beal almost had a triple double last time we played OKC.

He's just slumping.

He's always slumping! Last year he had a two month "slump". At what point do we say Beal is just sucking?

Beal is a 21yo professional basketball player. Not surprising that his work performance is inconsistent.

His all-around floor game, defense, and effort have been fine. Just isn't hitting shots.

[hands11]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI39fk_2fHs[/youtube]

You don't even have to watch the video.

Just look at the first frame. Beal is 4 feet behind Westbrook.

Nene is out to deep to recover and get in front of him. Westbrook knows that so he just made a hard drive right to the rim.

But watch what happens to Paul as Adams clips out his left leg putting him in the mud as he stumbles through and even after the play.

Its was actually a foul on Adams. But no way they would call it.

I just looked at it again and I see what happened.

Beal took his attention off Westbrook and looked back at the guy inbounding the ball.

Westbrook then broke to the basket and the rest is history.....

Sure, that as well.

But Beal had no business guarding him that far out of the floor. Westbrook was actually over the half court line with Beal there with him. Westbrook running back that deep spreed the entire defense out because Beal followed him there.

Beal should have never gotten deeper then a few feet inside of half court. If Westbrook wanted to run into the back court, let him.

Beal played it to aggressively and he and the team paid the price.

Beal extending like allowed Westbrook catch it with a head of steam actually ended up in giving OKC a 3 on 2 fast break from the in bound. Then Adams tripped Paul so he couldn't even get in front to take the charge.

[keynote]

Imagine if Wall even had half the aggressiveness of Russ.

Wall's never going to have the scoring mentality of a converted 2 guard. He's a pure point. He can become better/more efficient at scoring, and add more tools to his game. But he's never going to have the mentality of an Iverson, a Westbrook, a DuJuan Wagner, or a Waiters*.

We'd be better off adding a closer (e.g., Durant or a poor man's version), or a stretch 4 (Bosh or a poor man's version) than trying to force a pure PG to become a cold-blooded scorer.




*I tried to pick a range of talents who, despite widely-varying skill sets, share a similar scorer's mentality.

[Kanyewest]

Looks like Beal made a mistake as he was gambling for a steal. Westbrook turned on the jets and it looked like Beal was toast. Wall with little to no help defense- wonder he was scared of Waiters getting the ball.

[Wizardspride]

Looks like Beal made a mistake as he was gambling for a steal. Westbrook turned on the jets and it looked like Beal was toast. Wall with little to no help defense- wonder he was scared of Waiters getting the ball.

Wall had 5 fouls.

[Kanyewest]

Looks like Beal made a mistake as he was gambling for a steal. Westbrook turned on the jets and it looked like Beal was toast. Wall with little to no help defense- wonder he was scared of Waiters getting the ball.

Wall had 5 fouls.

Good point. Still, I would have rather had Wall do that then letting Westbrook having an uncontested layup at the rim.

[Illmatic12]

Looks like Beal made a mistake as he was gambling for a steal. Westbrook turned on the jets and it looked like Beal was toast. Wall with little to no help defense- wonder he was scared of Waiters getting the ball.

Wall knew that if he looked at Westbrook wrong the whistle was coming

[Kanyewest]

Looks like Beal made a mistake as he was gambling for a steal. Westbrook turned on the jets and it looked like Beal was toast. Wall with little to no help defense- wonder he was scared of Waiters getting the ball.

Wall knew that if he looked at Westbrook wrong the whistle was coming

Yeah, at that point it was an uphill battle. Looks like Wittman overthought this one like other coaches (Pop and Vogel) and didn't leave Gortat in there instead of Butler. But even then, there were probably other plays to point to why the Wizards didn't come up on top.

[jangles86]

Well that was an incredibly frustrating game to watch.

What a fascinating match up between two complete differing mentalitys of two very different Point Guards. Both very effective in their own right. Tonight it was Westbrooks night. Tip of the hat to him. His athletism is unparalleled in the point guard class. He wants the ball. He wants to score and he doesn't let a miss worry him. He is an alpha scorer.
Wall on the other hand is the ultimate team player. Does whatever it takes to get his team involved and will always get his teammate a bucket before he gets his own. It was a really great matchup to watch.

Durant is one of the most unstoppable scorers to play the game since Kobe at his prime. He literally can do what ever he wants to score the bucket. I thought Pierce was really good on him tonight, but you just can't stop a champion when they're at their peak. I cannot wait to see him do this for our wizards!!

Beal really struggled I thought. I am not going to jump to rash conclusions about anything. But I just thought tonight he shot poorly and was trapped to many times and fired cross court passes that were too risky.

One of the best games I've seen nene play in a long time. He was just a beast on the block and made Adams look very second rate at times.

Gortat was MIA for most of the night and just looked outclassed to be honest.

Pierce was gutsy as always. He hates losing and hit a couple of clutch 3's at the end. Thought his D on Durant was really good. Pierce really wasted a lot of shots early which I thought cost us momentum.

Our bench is in a real slump right now. Miller looks like he is coming to the end. I really believe we need to either sign a Point guard or trade for one. The movement of our bench in court was very poor.

It was an annoying loss. But im not too down. It would've been a great learning curve for Wall and Beal to see first hand how a duo can be unstoppable and win games.

Anyway my highlight of the night was the amount of times ESPN brought up KD2DC

[hands11]

Looks like Beal made a mistake as he was gambling for a steal. Westbrook turned on the jets and it looked like Beal was toast. Wall with little to no help defense- wonder he was scared of Waiters getting the ball.

Wall knew that if he looked at Westbrook wrong the whistle was coming

Yeah, at that point it was an uphill battle. Looks like Wittman overthought this one like other coaches (Pop and Vogel) and didn't leave Gortat in there instead of Butler. But even then, there were probably other plays to point to why the Wizards didn't come up on top.

The Westbrook 18 wheeler turtle smash into Wall, where Wall got the block and he was clearly set.
The Nene phantom foul on the rebound that should have been a jump ball.
What KD drive near the end where Gortat didn't touch him but Gortat got the foul anyway.
The Adam trip on the final play.

That's just the really bad ones off my head.

But Beal was terrible shooting and he blow the defense on that last play.

[hands11]

Good news is, with LMA out, we have a good shot at making this up with a win against POR who lost tonight the PHX

[pineappleheadindc]

It's apparent that Marcin Gortat somehow insulted the mother of most NBA refs. It appears that they're all proactively going out of their way to screw him.

Time for a new haircut, some mojo beads, or something there big guy.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Loss on John Wall.

I apologize.

Beal and Miller were much more culpable.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Loss on John Wall.

And we've been able to say that several times this year. His end of game brain farts are really concerning.

Wall fans, he shot two airballs and it appeared to Hubie Brown that Wall got beat by Westbrook at the end.

At halftime Wall was shutting Westbrook down. I assume fouls got Wall in trouble in half 2.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Actually the lose is on Beal way more then Wall.

Not only did he missed wide open 3s and

He was the one that blow that coverage the most on that last play.
Then Adams clipped Pauls leg so he couldn't cover.

Agreed.

(Green font)--Off with Beal's head!

[FAH1223]

Wall fans, he shot two airballs and it appeared to Hubie Brown that Wall got beat by Westbrook at the end.

At halftime Wall was shutting Westbrook down. I assume fouls got Wall in trouble in half 2.

He got his 5th on ticky tack BS from the refs. Didn't even touch Russ.

That forced Beal on Russ

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Beal lost this game, 14 points on 21 shots is hilariously bad. Its a shame too because he goes off on OKC more often then not. Oh well, I think the Wiz are in for a world of hurt vs Portland, but should be able to beat Denver and Lakers.

Two great players off a back to back beat an entire team that shot like garbage. Nene played great. Nobody protected the rim

Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook knew they could beat perimeter defenders off the drive.

That is why OKC won.

Superior personnel at crunch time.

[queridiculo]

To me this game was lost in the third quarter when Wittman just stood by hoarding his timeout watching yet another lead vanish into nothing.

Nene was killing Oklahoma on the post, what do the Wizards do, launch shot after shot after shot, instead of going inside for some attempts closer to the basket.

Teams go on runs, I get that, but good lord, is it too much to ask to at least try to stem the tide and make some adjustments from time to time.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Loss on John Wall.

loss on Wall? No way. Wall easily has a career high in assist if guys made shots. He got our best shooters wide and I mean wide open shots that they were missing all night

Agreed.

But stop with Wall MVP talk (not you in particular) because John shot isolation airballs twice, and one lame 40fter. He was NOT clutch at either end.

He did do a wonderful job setting up Nene. John had a tremendous first half defensively.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

I was at the game. Good crowd, good energy.

Wall got his lunch stolen by Westbrook who proceeded to kick his ass up and down the court. Complete defensive domination.

Lordy lordy.

Just don't say loss on Wall or he was the goat.

Fanboys get upset....