Game Thread: The Wiz @ New Jersey- 12/2/2008

[closg00]

Oh-goodie!! DeSuck finally earned his paycheck last night, it's about time!!

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

We made shots last night no one in a Wiz uniform (outside of Agent 0) usually make.

We were on fire, hitting tough shots even when the Nets played decent defense.

I can definitely empathize with Nets fans (if there were actually any of them there last night).

Hot shooting balances out...

But what I did like was the commitment to crisp ball movement. It is so much easier to nail a jumper when you are in rhythm, and on offense the Wiz did a better job getting the ball out of their hands than I've seen in a while.

I hope that that is a "Tapscott effect," and not an aberration. Good, quick ball movement pays huge dividends over the course of a game (tires the other team out, improves your field goal percentage, saves the legs of players who before had to do everything off the dribble, etc.)

Let's see if it continues tonight.

[greendale]

At some point in the game when the Nets were really sticking it up, probably in the third quarter, there was a timeout called and I heard a lot of booing. Nothing particularly unusual about this except that it was really loud considering how empty the arena was and the Nets' fans history of being generally sedate. But then I began to wonder whether the booing was canned noise, after all they used canned cheering at appropriate times. It seems reasonable that their pre-recorded noise clips include booing (used, for example, for questionable referee calls). But it would be pretty in your face to play the booing when the home team was playing poorly.

[dobrojim]

Vince Carter and Devin Harris will destroy our guards. Nets win easily.

I guess you were as pleasantly surprised as I was. While neither was horrible,
they both scored below the season avgs meanwhile our big 2 rolled on. And
for a change deBrick became deSwish.

It was nice for a night. To make me really enthusiastic again, they'll need to win
2 out of these next 3. I fear the chances of that are not good. We just are NOT
going to shoot that well on a regular basis.

[dobrojim]

WHAT A BS CHARGE CALL ON BLATCHE
god I'm sick of this. call the game properly you idiots

The bad part about that was the nearly identical call that
went against 'dray later in the game. I thought 'dray did OK
last night in spite of a very unimpressive stat line.

[ZonkertheBrainless]

WHAT A BS CHARGE CALL ON BLATCHE
god I'm sick of this. call the game properly you idiots

The bad part about that was the nearly identical call that
went against 'dray later in the game. I thought 'dray did OK
last night in spite of a very unimpressive stat line.

Actually it was the blocking foul I was complaining about, I think. When he got called for a charge I thought it was a good call. But he made exactly the same move on the other end and got called for blocking. That's bs. They'll let a guard throw himself in front of someone while still moving and give him the charge. Blatche makes a perfectly good move and gets called for the block. Why?

[dobrojim]

WHAT A BS CHARGE CALL ON BLATCHE
god I'm sick of this. call the game properly you idiots

The bad part about that was the nearly identical call that
went against 'dray later in the game. I thought 'dray did OK
last night in spite of a very unimpressive stat line.

Actually it was the blocking foul I was complaining about, I think. When he got called for a charge I thought it was a good call. But he made exactly the same move on the other end and got called for blocking. That's bs. They'll let a guard throw himself in front of someone while still moving and give him the charge. Blatche makes a perfectly good move and gets called for the block. Why?

Right. That's what I thought you meant. One time he got called for a block (in the 1st half)
then in the 2nd(?), he was on the bad side again of a nearly identical call that went the other
way, block the first time, charge the second.

[dandridge 10]

WHAT A BS CHARGE CALL ON BLATCHE
god I'm sick of this. call the game properly you idiots

The bad part about that was the nearly identical call that
went against 'dray later in the game. I thought 'dray did OK
last night in spite of a very unimpressive stat line.

I'm not a big Dray fan and like Lyrical, would like to see us deal him. However, I also didn't think he was that bad last night. According to Glen Consor in the post game show, Dray and Tapscott got into a shouting match at some point and Dray did not come back into the game after that. The only reason I could see for Tapscott getting angry was the charge foul when Dray clearly should have dumped it to Stevenson for a lay-up. Dray also took a bad three point shot. Other than that, he was ok.

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

WHAT A BS CHARGE CALL ON BLATCHE
god I'm sick of this. call the game properly you idiots

The bad part about that was the nearly identical call that
went against 'dray later in the game. I thought 'dray did OK
last night in spite of a very unimpressive stat line.

I'm not a big Dray fan and like Lyrical, would like to see us deal him. However, I also didn't think he was that bad last night. According to Glen Consor in the post game show, Dray and Tapscott got into a shouting match at some point and Dray did not come back into the game after that. The only reason I could see for Tapscott getting angry was the charge foul when Dray clearly should have dumped it to Stevenson for a lay-uy. Dray also took a bad three point shot. Other than that, he was ok.

But the charge was so darned predictable (even though Dooling was actually moving) that even corporate lackey Steve Buckhantz commented on it.

Basic fundamental basketball: The dribbler on the break stops at the top of the key unless he can get all the way to the rim.

Dray makes so many mistakes that even hs jv players don't. I'm really glad to see that we have a coach (albeit a short-term one) that is holding him accountable and letting him know when he is making fundamental mistakes.

[Ruzious]

Well, that was fun. We're .500 now with E-Tap and hopefully this will give us confidence. I just don't see it. I could see us playing well the rest of the way (if Caron stays in one piece) and Gil comes back and just missing out on the playoffs because of a 2-12 start.

But without jumping ahead, nice to see D-Mac out on the floor getting rebounds and loose balls. Let McGee and Blatche play and make mistakes. Don't play Songaila at center if you have to. This is best stretch of ball he's played in terms of offense and defense since he's been here.

As for D-Swish, it's all about the beard.

It really is nice seeing both the young bigs allowed to play through mistakes.

Darius is fine at backup PF or even backup SF. He came in for Caron once tonight.

I like Eddie T's coaching better than Eddie J.

I don't mean to sound like an arse (It comes naturally.), but the Wiz won because the old vets played real well - Stevenson, Jamison, and Butler - EJ's boys - and because NJ played really poorly. I'm all for lots of PT for the young'ns, but let's not pretend that this was a victory due to any new philosophy, new coach, or new way of doing things.

[dobrojim]

Can't argue that TJ/AJ/DS aren't/weren't EJ's boyz but so was Etan who
didn't get in the game. Also we got more than fleeting minutes of DMac.

we won for the simple reason that we were hitting shots, esp 3 pters.
Oh and they weren't.

I also wonder about the effect of being home after a semi-extended
west coast trip, even one as successful as their's was.

ps - just peeked at the headlines re Devin Harris. NJ oughta be happy
with the deal unloading Kidd. In the next 3-5, esp by 5 years, Harris
will be WAY better than Kidd will be by then, if he's still even playing.