Official Thread - Wizards at Magic (10/28/15)

[dckingsfan]

How is Randy supposed to play at high octane pace with Nene, Gooden, & Blair in the front court?

They were uniformly gassed. I think Nene/Gooden combo can do 4 min at a time but that will be a bit disjoint - 20 minutes for Gooden is too many if we want him to finish the season

Blair just doesn't fit in at all in this schema. Having Anderson and Dudley injured at the beginning of the season is a bit of bad luck.

BTW, Gortat was fully gassed as well with the 36 minutes he played.

Going to be interesting.

[dobrojim]

Orlando has a lot of good prospects with high floors. They really need a couple of those guys to break out and become stars. Kinda like the Boston Celtics, only with better prospects and a worse coach.

It always depresses me when I see a team with so many assets. They have 7 decent young players/prospects. We tanked almost as long as they did, and have 4. EG really did a poor job of building depth for the future.

I was reflecting last night watching the game on Skile's time with the Bullets during th
Webber/Howard era. It's kinda ironic that Skiles' rep is as a defensive minded coach
and a faulty memory that he was a good defensive player. He may have wished he
was a good defensive player but he couldn't stay in front of opp PGs and was too
small to guard any other position. Amazing passer though.

Re the game

We pulled that one out of our rear ends. Sign of a good team? We'll see. Hope so.

ORL was playing pretty fierce D after the first Q denying everything we wanted
to do.

Our only big worth a darn was Tat. Obviously Nene and Gooden stunk.

OP with a +19 or some such even though he didn't shoot well. I was struck by
a couple a sequences where he just made plays in a variety of ways. If this
keeps up he'll be a great asset and compliment to Wall and Beal.

FTs, ugh. Although it's funny the TV studio guys on Comcast talked about
how crucial it was. As we've heard previously from the Stat guys, FTs (or FT%)
are actually rarely determinative in the outcome. So yeah, we shot poorly
but no, it didn't change who got the W.

[nate33]

I agree with dobrojim about Porter. He helps the team a lot even when it looks like he's playing poorly. That guy is going to be a stud.

Nene looked fantastic in the first 3 preseason games so he's clearly not "done". However, the question is, is he now at the point where he is utterly useless unless he is totally rested and healthy? If so, Randy better do a better job of assessing Nene's condition before game time. If Nene isn't 100%, play Blair at backup C. Nene was beyond awful tonight. But the worst part was his decision-making. WTF were all of those weak, fading long 2's? If the 2nd unit needs a bailout shot, it should come from Neal or from Sessions recklessly hurling himself into the lane.

I'm not too worried about Gooden. He's a bench player. He's going to have up and down days.

Nice to see Beal being assertive. He didn't have a great game, but he still looked more like "Playoff Beal" rather than the regular-season Beal we've seen the past 3 years.

Overall, it's nice to get a win despite terrible shooting from the FT line and the 3PT line, and a lot of sloppy play. It's the sign of a good team. Even if things aren't going well, they locked it down defensively and won ugly.

[lastemp3ror]

The reason I like this win, although with all of its faults are:

- Our leaders lead the team to this win. When we needed Wall and Beal to step up, they did.
- I think this win will pay some future dividends when we have another close game like this.
- Beal and Wall both driving to the hoop, and NOT passing it off as much as last year.
- Porter overall looks much better. Him and Gortat look like they developed some chemistry. Porter also seems to be in the right place at the right time on defense.
- Gortat played well and looks primed to take advantage of this offense.

With that being said, there are several things I dis-liked in this game. I know this is just the season opener, so things can change, but still, here they are:

- 2nd unit still looks like garbage and looks lost on offense. Hopefully Dudley will change that.
- We still are not that good from the FT line.
- Beal is still settling for the long 2. Although he did seem upset with himself after each one he took, which is nice.
- Too many turnovers.
- Gooden shouldn't see the light of day. He is still pump faking the shot a lot, either put it up, or pass it to the next open guy! It isn't like he is going to pump fake it and then drive down the lane! Let's give Blair a shot.

[Kanyewest]

It appeared like there was some home cooking going on with some of those calls. The Wizards were fortunate to come out with a win. While the starters played well, the bench was horrendous and Orlando really tightened up their defense in the 2nd half. Orlando seemed to be packing in the paint- as they don't really respect Wall, Gooden, and Humphries from 3. The Wizards really seemed to spread the floor more at the end of the game when they had a lineup of Wall, Beal, Neal, Porter, and Gortat.

[Hypnotizer]

What the heck Porter and Gooden III are doing at the end of this vine?

[Kanyewest]

What the heck Porter and Gooden III are doing at the end of this vine?

It looks like Porter is going to tie his shoe laces while Gooden looks to catch his breath.

[dobrojim]

OP plays smart (most of the time...there was one play where he really telegraphed a pass)

One of his 3s just rimmed out.

He has great anticipation for rebounding.

[montestewart]

Anyone else confused by the "illegal touching" call? Sounds slightly Sandusky-esque.

Chenier saying "illegal touching?" was hilarious. It sounded like he was thinking the same thing.

I watched the game via ESPN smartphone box score while in class. What a nip and tuck box score! When I got home and checked the final box score, the Wiz had gone up by 1 with 12 seconds left and when I turned the TV on, the refs were reviewing the GT call with 3.5 seconds left. Overturned the call, gave Magic the ball, inbound, Vucevic miss, game over, Wizards one point victory in road opener! What an exciting 3.5 seconds of viewing.

PS: Since I didn't see the game and rarely watch completed games, I'll take everyone's word on performances, everyone as usual agreeing about everything. Good game thread. I do note that John Wall currently leads the league in Blocks Per Game! Maybe move him to point center.

[Kanyewest]

How is Randy supposed to play at high octane pace with Nene, Gooden, & Blair in the front court?

They were uniformly gassed. I think Nene/Gooden combo can do 4 min at a time but that will be a bit disjoint - 20 minutes for Gooden is too many if we want him to finish the season

Blair just doesn't fit in at all in this schema. Having Anderson and Dudley injured at the beginning of the season is a bit of bad luck.

BTW, Gortat was fully gassed as well with the 36 minutes he played.

Going to be interesting.

The Wizards find themselves in a predicament. Guys like Gortat, Humphries, and Gooden looked gassed at times and Wall and Beal also played heavy minutes. While I agree the Wizards would be better served going small, in the long run the Wizards don't want to wear out their starters especially Gortat who is not that young anymore. However, the bench has been terrible and perhaps the Wizards could get away playing Gortat that many minutes given it was not a back to back.

I am interested to see what Blair can out there at center with a stretch 4 like he had in Dallas where he was very effective. I am concerned about his defense though but Blair could be a pleasant surprised. I would also have leaned on Blair for a few minutes at the 4 given that Dudley/Anderson are banged up, Oubre is still a project, and I don't think Humphries and Gooden can play that many minutes.

I did like the Wizards crunch time lineup of Wall, Beal, Neal, Porter, and Gortat.

[Higga]

Good win to open the season. Ugly offense after the 1st quarter but Orlando has some nice young talent and you knew Skiles would have them playing that typical Scott Skiles tough physical style of ball.

Wall and Beal carried us late, as stars are supposed to do in close games. Porter didn't produce much scoring wise but contributed in other wise. Had almost an Andrei Kirilenko like stat line with all the boards and assists, and I believe a steal or two as well(by the way would that be a fair comparison for Porter or am I crazy?).

Need to improve on our FT shooting though. Inexcusable to miss so many. All those open 3s we missed will go in so I'm not worried about that.

[stevemcqueen1]

Overall, it's nice to get a win despite terrible shooting from the FT line and the 3PT line, and a lot of sloppy play. It's the sign of a good team. Even if things aren't going well, they locked it down defensively and won ugly.

Yep. Winning on the road against an amped up opponent in spite of an awful shooting night is a good sign. It was a clear demonstration of the value of having stars. They can carry you to road wins even when your team as a whole is badly outplayed.

Randy needed to do a better job of recognizing Nene was struggling and sit him down. The offense and effort on the glass was bad enough, but he was playing ole defense and watching ball carriers blow by our guards to the rim and letting the forwards do the work to recover and foul. There were basically no positives in his performance. He's rusty and out of shape.

[stevemcqueen1]

I did like the Wizards crunch time lineup of Wall, Beal, Neal, Porter, and Gortat.

I didn't like Neal on Hezonja. It came awfully close to biting us in the ass on the boards. And I'm not sure it actually gave us a boost on offense. Did anyone other than Wall or Beal hit a FG in the fourth quarter?

Against a different opponent, I like the line up though. Hezonja was just too tall for Neal.

[nuposse04]

I thought the starters as whole played well. Even Hump put up 11-6 in 26 minutes. 1/3 from 3pt range is respectabe, hopefully it gets a little better... I get the feeling like he'll shoot noticeably better at home then on road games since it is mostly a mental adjustment for him. We gotta run more P n R though through Gortat when the offense cools. Gortat should be getting 10-12 shots a game at least in this offense.

[Sluggerface]

I'm not a fan of three guard lineups at all. Feel like Randy needs to bite the bullet and just play KO or the team needs to make a trade.

[stevemcqueen1]

Throwing in my review:

Wall & Beal were excellent. Played like stars. Only negatives were the awful FT shooting and the TOs. Beal had a disastrous start to the game with two quick TOs resulting from carelessness, but then rallied well. Wall got loosey goosey with the ball, but some of the TOs were the better "trying to make something happen" kind. Beal also needed to do a better job boxing Oladipo out. They did a good job getting to the line, but man, that was ugly FT shooting. Unacceptable and they know it. But again, on the whole, they were pretty dominant and were the clear reason for the win.

Gortat - also excellent. I loved his work on defense, really did a great job closing off the paint despite all of the gambling the perimeter players did. I also thought he did about as good a job as you can expect D'ing up Vucevic. And he converted his opportunities that were created for him, and made two clutch FTs at the end of the game that put us into position to steal it. I really don't have anything negative to say about him.

Hump - player pretty well. Made some big shots. Gave us his usual diet of hustle plays like that tip in when we couldn't get anything to drop, and that steal where he finished with a breakaway dunk. He was a good irritant and he did a fair job on the boards. But my negative is that he got scared to shoot and started hot potatoing the ball out of open looks, which led to some really grinding half court possessions that ended in out of rhythm heaves. He needs to stay confident and take the shot when it's there.

Porter - bad shooting night and it led to a similar loss of confidence in his three ball that we saw with Hump. He needs to pull the trigger on those threes if they're open. But he did make stuff happen, especially for Gortat. Those two have good chemistry. And he did a good job on the glass. I liked the one sequence where he was **** throwing elbows fighting for that offensive rebound. The other players were off put by his tenacity. Didn't know he had that in him.

But another negative: Porter and Hump struggled to box Aaron Gordon out. All those put backs and offensive boards really fired the Magic up.

As for the bench, Nene was awful. Sessions was ok. Not even sure if Dudley checked in. Neal created and hit a bunch of big shots in the first half that made his night an overall positive. Good microwave scoring, although he too couldn't buy an open make in the second half. Tough night for Gooden. He laid a bunch of bricks (like almost everyone else) and looked really gassed trying to keep the pace. But they were good open looks. He has to keep taking them. I agree with the posters that say we need to keep his minutes down. We might need to be going to 11 and 12 man rotations.

Can't wait for Alan Anderson and Jared Dudley to get healthy. Those guys will be important to our ability to manage minutes for the wings and forwards.

[Kanyewest]

I did like the Wizards crunch time lineup of Wall, Beal, Neal, Porter, and Gortat.

I didn't like Neal on Hezonja. It came awfully close to biting us in the ass on the boards. And I'm not sure it actually gave us a boost on offense. Did anyone other than Wall or Beal hit a FG in the fourth quarter?

Against a different opponent, I like the line up though. Hezonja was just too tall for Neal.

Hezonja wasn't good in crunch time though against when Neal was inserted in the final 1:40 of the game. Hezonja airballed a mid range jumper and lost the ball off his knee with Neal guarding him- and the Wizards didn't give up any offensive rebounds in that span while outscoring Orlando 6-0. Hezonja was too inexperienced to take adavantage of Neal- then again I was pleasantly surprised by Neal defense in that span.

[stevemcqueen1]

There is a good chance Orlando could be a uniquely bad match up for us going forward. They have the horses and depth to slow the transition game down. Lots of good individual defenders and energizer bunnies.

[stevemcqueen1]

Hezonja wasn't good in crunch time though against when Neal was inserted in the final 1:40 of the game. Hezonja airballed a mid range jumper and lost the ball off his knee with Neal guarding him- and the Wizards didn't give up any offensive rebounds in that span while outscoring Orlando 6-0. Hezonja was too inexperienced to take adavantage of Neal- then again I was pleasantly surprised by Neal defense in that span.

Yeah, it worked. And I agree that Hezonja's inexperience was the main reason why. But we played with fire. Hezonja came painfully close to getting a couple big rebounds from Neal not really being able to wall him off, and some of those misses were good looks.

If Anderson were healthy, I would have stuck him on Hezonja instead of Neal.

[dckingsfan]

How is Randy supposed to play at high octane pace with Nene, Gooden, & Blair in the front court?

They were uniformly gassed. I think Nene/Gooden combo can do 4 min at a time but that will be a bit disjoint - 20 minutes for Gooden is too many if we want him to finish the season

Blair just doesn't fit in at all in this schema. Having Anderson and Dudley injured at the beginning of the season is a bit of bad luck.

BTW, Gortat was fully gassed as well with the 36 minutes he played.

Going to be interesting.

The Wizards find themselves in a predicament. Guys like Gortat, Humphries, and Gooden looked gassed at times and Wall and Beal also played heavy minutes. While I agree the Wizards would be better served going small, in the long run the Wizards don't want to wear out their starters especially Gortat who is not that young anymore. However, the bench has been terrible and perhaps the Wizards could get away playing Gortat that many minutes given it was not a back to back.

I am interested to see what Blair can out there at center with a stretch 4 like he had in Dallas where he was very effective. I am concerned about his defense though but Blair could be a pleasant surprised. I would also have leaned on Blair for a few minutes at the 4 given that Dudley/Anderson are banged up, Oubre is still a project, and I don't think Humphries and Gooden can play that many minutes.

I did like the Wizards crunch time lineup of Wall, Beal, Neal, Porter, and Gortat.

Agreed. I do worry that Blair just can't run with that group. But playing Gortat 36 minutes - that isn't going to be a long term answer.