Wizards @ Hawks: October 30, 2010 7:00 p.m. ET

[hands11]

Wall's skills are great but by far the best thing about him is his on court leadership. You see him right now pumping everyone up? This kid just turned 20 and is acting like he's Magic or MJ on the court with his leadership. Hopefully they follow and step up like him. You can tell that he doesnt ever want to lose and weve needed that for a long time

That is the best way to ride this out for now in my view. Big picture.

And big picture is about ownership and leadership on the court. That is where we turned the corner.
That is why I am being patient and optimistic. Ted and Wall. That is what is most different.

All I'm looking for right now is to see how much they can effect the other pieces around them so we can figure out who stays and who goes. Everyone gets a clean slate for now except in my book Nick. I'm ready to part ways with him as soon as it makes sense. Until then, he either rides the bench until we get in sync and until we are winning enough or up enough that we can play him to try to raise his value.

Game 2 looked a lot better than game 1. Atlanta is basically the same team they were last year that made the playoffs so they were in sync. We are game two into playing a lot of new players and we played them pretty close. Losing by 4 is respectable in that situation. No Gil. No Howard.

Now we get Philly. A team that isn't Orlando or Atlanta. AT is getting off to a very good start. Most here didn't expect that so that's a bonus. Soon we will add Gilbert which while add outside shooting and vet experience. Hopefully Gil is ready for the Philly game and we win so we are 1-2

It's great for us that our schedule is slow to start the year. Oct 28, 30th, Nov 2 then 5th.
Plenty of days off for Flip and Sam to work with these guys and for Gil to get better.

So if we can take Philly and then NY. 2-2 and we are building. That would be solid to me. But we have a lot getting this thing in sync to do in those two games so we are ready for the middle tier teams. Those are the teams we need to be better than right now. Not the Orlando, LA level teams.

[verbal8]

we lost because of FT's. they made 26/30 which is just ungodly both in volume and accuracy. gil would have been the difference here. toss in haywood and we would have won by 20.

I think with either Arenas or even a healthy Josh Howard and the Wizards would have won this one.

[dobrojim]

Patience is the most important thing required of wizard fans this year.

I'm going to be bold and venture forth the theory that there might be instances where some here fall short of that ideal.

first post I've read since I watched the game last night on 'tape' delay.

Still have not watched the debacle vs ORL. Not going to fret too much about
these 2 road losses.

Wall looked amazing last night. That's the biggest thing to take away from the game.

[dobrojim]

As a Wizards fan I feel privileged to watch John Wall play. I have no doubt that he will be the best PG in the NBA within 3 or 4 years. His jumper is a lot better than advertised. One big problem we have as a team is size in the paint. Our frontline is rail thin and soft, we need a bruiser down low.

I was getting bit peaved watching all the BS moving screens called
but them totally overlooking multiple times when an offensive player
pushed off to create space.

that said, I would welcome a bruiser as much as anyone. It might not
happen this year, but maybe, Seraphin can be that guy.

assuming Gil and Josh eventually play, we should be decent at least
some nights, surely sucky other nights.

[SAUCERY_SWEET]

we lost because of FT's. they made 26/30 which is just ungodly both in volume and accuracy. gil would have been the difference here. toss in haywood and we would have won by 20.

[queridiculo]

Haven't had a chance to post in this game thread, but after finally having had a chance to watch the game I feel a lot better about this season.

Javale played one of his best game as a Wizard as far as I am concerned. Stayed within himself, didn't force anything on offense and showed a tremendous amount of effort on the defensive end. He still gets pinned under the basket a bit too often for my taste, but that's something that'll come with experience and added strength.

John Wall, not much to say here really, the stats tell the story. Loved his intensity in the 4th quarter.

Blatche had a terrible first half, but turned it around in the second. I'd like to see him accept the physical contact in the post a bit more. Too often he catches the ball on the post, backs out and bails out defenders by taking contested jumpers. Pass the ball out of the post, repost a bit deeper and put that back to the basket game to work a bit more.

Thornton had an amazing game, but until he strings a few consistent games together I'll reserve judgement.

[queridiculo]

The Wizards need more beef obviously. I don't see a McGee/Blatche combo working well since they are both soft and weak rebounders. Adding Yi doesn't help because he is in the same mold. The Hawks outrebounded them by 13.

Yi was just awful on the defensive end, having him play at center really hurt the team in the 4th. Obviously Saunders is still experimenting, but I hope that Yi at center is going to be a short lived one.

[pineappleheadindc]

we lost because of FT's. they made 26/30 which is just ungodly both in volume and accuracy. gil would have been the difference here. toss in haywood and we would have won by 20.

I think with either Arenas or even a healthy Josh Howard and the Wizards would have won this one.

Not surw how much Josh would have helped. Thornton had a good game (boardering on great game). If AT can give us a similar effort *consistently*, we will be fine at the 3. But a healthy Gil would have helped. When Wall was out of the game, ATL always made a run.

By the way, have I mentioned that I'm ready to swap out Nick Young for LARON PROFIT at this point?

[DCZards]

Thornton had an amazing game, but until he strings a few consistent games together I'll reserve judgement.

I'm expecting Thornton to have a solid season. In addition to the great game he played against Atl, I think AT played decent against Orlando, leading the team in boards. Now that he is no longer with the Clippers, who drafted him with high expectations, and is on a team where he is going to be a role player, I expect Thornton to settle into his role as a fourth or fifth option on offense.

I see AT wanting to prove himself in a big way. I also see him using his tremendous athleticism to get out on the break. Look for Thornton and Wall to play well together, especially in the open court.

[Nivek]

From the defensive scoresheeet:

- Interesting defensive line from McGee. Hawks shot 6.0-17.5 when he was involved in defending, good for a defg of .324. McGee also had 3 non-steal forced turnovers -- an impressive number for just 27 minutes. And he had 6 defensive boards, which isn't bad. On the negative side of the ledger: the Hawks were 8-8 from the FT line when he fouled.

- Yi had a pretty solid defensive game until the last couple minutes when the Hawks clearly targeted him. He gave up 3 consecutive buckets in those final 2 minutes.

- Another solid game of shot defense from Young.

Overall, a pretty good defensive game from the Wizards. Their big defensive weakeness is defensive rebounding. What cost them the game, though was inefficiency on offense.

[montestewart]

Another solid game of shot defense from Young.

Its' the maddening thing about him, his play on defense and an occasionally good shooting performance making me think he's...what I want him to be.

Thanks for the data. Much appreciated.

[Nivek]

Another solid game of shot defense from Young.

Its' the maddening thing about him, his play on defense and an occasionally good shooting performance making me think he's...what I want him to be.

Thanks for the data. Much appreciated.

In 2 games (and just 32 total minutes), Young's defg is .318. His drtg is 99.2 (team drtg is 109.9). There are still holes in his defensive game, though. He loses track of his man, he doesn't force turnovers, and he doesn't get defensive boards. The Wiz should be happy with his shot challenging, though.

Best drtg among rotation players through 2 games: Al Thornton's 79.9. Blatche also comes out good so far (99.7) despite his crappy body language. The "problem" defenders through the first 2: Yi (130.0), Hinrich (125.1), Wall (121.9), McGee (114.5). Although, McGee was horrific defensively against Orlando, and pretty good against Atlanta. (Just caught an error in my previous post -- McGee had 6 defensive boards against Atlanta, not 3.)

[willbcocks]

Kev: My eyes definitely agree with your stats on McGee's first two games. I was really happy with his D yesterday. My impression may be off, but I think McGee tends to foul a lot after the other team gets an offensive board. He's out of position, either after going for a block or for some other BigWookie reason, then responds poorly and with a foul when the opposing player gets a board and goes up with it. The problems are linked in my opinion.

RE: Blatche's stats. Do you have a way to factor in the number of shots challenged? Blatche is so passive about challenging "other people's men" when they break free and are going for layups. I wouldn't be surprised if the efg for men he is guarding is quite low.

[Nivek]

I do have a way of checking on help defense. I need to go back to my scoresheets, which I don't have with me today. The numbers through the first couple games suggest that Blatche has not been a particularly active defender. His percentage of the team's defensive possessions is 18.7%, which is slightly below average.

"Team" possessions (meaning possessions where no individual was specifically responsible -- think transition lauyups, wide-open 3s that didn't result from one guy blowing an assignment, 24-second violations or ball-handling mishaps without a defender in the area) have accounted for 4.6% percent of defensive possessions so far. So, "average" defensive usage would be about 19%. But, big men usually have higher defensive usage rates because of their help responsibilities. So, Blatche's 18.7% suggest that he's not as active as he should be.

How does he compare to other bigs? Yi: 21.5%. Armstrong: 30.0%. McGee: 36.4% (!).

Just looking at the defensive box score, I see one area where Blatche is doing well -- challenging 3pt attempts. I have him at 0.5-6.0 (yes, that's half a make on 6 total attempts (including splits)). Only Wall has been involved in defending more 3pt attempts (8); Hinrich and Yi have 5 each. The opposition is shooting 61.3% on 2pt attempts vs. Blatche. This would likely fit your theory that Blatche is ineffective (uninterested?) in help defense in the paint.