1PM, Rubio VS Wall (Wolves - Wiz Game Thread)

[Benjammin]

I think the defense tends to assume that Javale/Blatche will get beat one on one and automatically sends helpers even when the guy with the ball hasn't made a move yet. I don't know if that's by design or by stupidity on the helpers' side.

I say give the post defender a chance to make a stop before rushing to bail him out. Force the ball to stick.

The Wizards have been doubling down in the post for years, almost reflexively. Then the rest of the guys don't rotate well to cover for it. There are some guy you need to double in the post and some you don't. Whoever you double in the post, the double team has to be strong enough not to allow them to pass effectively out of it. If they get a weaker pass out, it gives the other defenders time to rotate properly.

[pancakes3]

yeah, i was going to echo what zonk said in response to the "why are the shooters so open?!" question. our team generates a lot of turnovers and our guards are hyperconfident in their recovery ability except when they don't. also a lot of the 3s were transition 3's and as i mentioned in many previous threads - our transition defense is horrific even without blatche.

plus every one on that team can shoot the 3, from 1-5. we've got some lazy characters on the team and you can't defend them all.

[The Consiglieri]

It's NOT POSSIBLE for this team to be worse than last year's.

Well we are seeing it...

And we should have seen it coming. Lockout shortened training camp and pre-season, young team who needs lots of practise and coaching.... Then when we realised that a certain player was out of shape, and another certain player was getting paid a boatload and didnt care any more, we should have known this was going to be a LOOOONNNG short season.

I think most of us knew it, we were just expecting a season probably analagous to last year, 22-26 win projected rate gets you to around 16 or 17 wins, so the expectation would be about 1.5-6.5 to 2-6 right now. Instead, totally blown to pieces in 7 of 8 games. I dont think anybody expected the 5-61 to 10-56 season it's feeling like right now. I went game by game and found a liklihood of about 14-15 wins (14-52 to 15-51) but even I, a major negative nellie, had a hard time believing we'd be as bad as my expectation, so i bumped up my prediction to I think 17-49. Well, that is most definitely not happening. There are right now 58 games, and I'd lock in about 39 of them as near certain losses, with about 18 or 19 against teams that aren't very good either, at our rate we might turn things around to win 1/3 to 1/2 of them, which would give us about 6 to 9 wins. You always get your handful of upset wins, even if you suck as bad as we do, and we could get a perfect storm of an opponent resting tons of key guys and us coming off a lay off and rest that allows us to steal a game, but at this point, a 10-56 to 15-51 final record seems highly liklely with a single digit win total becoming a possibility instead of a chicken little nightmare. To win double digits the rest of the way we basically have to win at a .175 rate or so, and I'm not sure a team this bad is capable of that. The only thing it has going for it is a ton of games against Charlotte, Cleveland, Detroit and the like. Keep an eye on the Rashard angle, it will be interesting to see how Rashard handles what happened and how the FO handles it going forward. Could cause dramatic change.

[montestewart]

I dont think anybody expected the 5-61 to 10-56 season it's feeling like right now.

Illuminaire did. Some others predicted 10 wins. Hey, two game win streak and we're all back in the hunt, eh?

[tontoz]

The game changed went Wall went out and Crawford came in. Minny made a huge run and never looked back. Vesley was also pretty poor, especially rebounding wise. He kept getting hit by the ball on the rebounds lol .

Both guys had a +/- of -21 which was clearly evident by the way the team looked when they came in.

Actually it was Rubio that made the difference.

As to the question did Wall kill my dog. Nope. Just calling it as I see it. He is not a very effective PG.

He has moments were he makes good plays but mostly he doesnt play very smart.

He is currently like McGee has been over the years as a center. He does a thing or two good, but he doesn't understand the position. At least not year. And he has an over inflated ego.

If I had to choose PGs for this team for this year right now, I would take Rubio.

Wall needs to go watching some of the Boston game footage.

I find it hilarious how you had nothing to complain about Wall last year, and now because he is in a funk, you call him dumb, immature and what not (over inflated ego, lol, based on what..???);

According to your "logic", it is possible for one to know how to play PG, then all of a sudden forget how to... and I bet if he picks it up (like the Boston game), he is a PG again...

Dude, do you even know how ridiculous that ish sounds...???

To be fair hands was critical of Wall last year as well. So was I back in january of last season.

I changed my tune on Wall after watching him improve a lot over the last 3 months of the season.

[tontoz]

It's NOT POSSIBLE for this team to be worse than last year's. It's just not.

Yes it is. Last year people dogged Hinrich and Thornton a lot, but how many players on this team are better than those 2?

Yi is garbage, but he could make open jumpers consistently.

[LyricalRico]

I dont think anybody expected the 5-61 to 10-56 season it's feeling like right now.

Illuminaire did. Some others predicted 10 wins. Hey, two game win streak and we're all back in the hunt, eh?

My prediction was exactly 10-56. The regression could even be seen in the limited preseason games against Philly, even though many at the time said "dont' overreact". There was just something in the body language of the team that told me it was going to be a long season.

The only things keeping me interested at this point are the energy from Booker/Singleton and my desire to see what Vesely can do.

[Illuminaire]

I didn't realize there was a lower circle of sports hell that the Wizards could still descend to. Whoops.

[The Consiglieri]

I dont think anybody expected the 5-61 to 10-56 season it's feeling like right now.

Illuminaire did. Some others predicted 10 wins. Hey, two game win streak and we're all back in the hunt, eh?

My prediction was exactly 10-56. The regression could even be seen in the limited preseason games against Philly, even though many at the time said "dont' overreact". There was just something in the body language of the team that told me it was going to be a long season.

The only things keeping me interested at this point are the energy from Booker/Singleton and my desire to see what Vesely can do.

Well in fairness, I created a 5-10 win window and I dont think anyone chose 5-51, but Im surprised at how many actually picked fewer than me (though I threw on an extra 2-3 wins via upsets to boost the total to 17 i think). i didnt expect them to necessairly be significantly better, but a 10 win performance this year is a regression in winning percentage of something on the scale of about 9-10 fewer wins than last year if this had been a complete season.

I figured they'd have been a 24-28 win team this year, but with the lockout, I figured that would hurt us more in the lack of practice time, but maybe help us down the stretch as older teams got tired so I wasnt sure on net effect, chose negative and ended up figuring we'd play at a clip 3-4 games worse than a year ago. This? This I wasn't really expecting, this is much worse than I figured I still think we'll end up winning probably 12-14 games, but its going to be absolutely brutal, even worse than I figured last month but right along the lines of what you saw coming down the road.

[Nivek]

I thought the Wizards would be bad this season, but they've set a new standard for ineptitude.

Through 8 games, they have an offensive rating of 91.2 (that's points per 100 possessions), which would be the worst offensive rating since the league implemented the 3pt shot in the 1979-80. Worst ortg in that same time period: the 02-03 Nuggets, which posted a 92.2.

That team was coached by Jeff Bzdelik. Their best player was Juwan Howard. High-minute players from that squad included a 20-year old Nene, Junior Harrington, Donnell Harvey, Rodney White, Vincent Yarbrough, and Nikoloz Tskitishvili. They also had a few youngsters who were terrible then, but got better and became contributors later like Chris Anderson and James Posey. Marcus Camby was on that team too, but (shocker) got hurt.

[montestewart]

We sure could use a Nikoloz (Milli Vanilli) Tskitishvili right about now.

Where do they stack up defensively?

[Nivek]

Actually, not THAT bad defensively. They're 22nd in drtg this season, and efficiency is down this year league-wide.

Tskita was awful. He'd fit right in on this roster.

Know who worked in the Denver front office when they picked Tskita and force-fed him minutes in his rookie season?




















Tommy Sheppard.

[GhostsOfGil]

Mike lee is saying the lewis-Cassell fight was not true....

"Flip Saunders said report of a Lewis-Cassell argument is "not true." Lewis added he wasn't on bench because he lacked sports coat #wizards"

hmm

[montestewart]

^
yeah, tell me they don't have some loud plaid sportcoat they make you wear if if you forget your own.

[montestewart]

Lewis slipped on a bar of soap and his face inadvertantly hit Cassell's championship ring.

[Illuminaire]

Lewis slipped on a bar of soap and his face inadvertantly hit Cassell's championship ring.

If that was even remotely true, I would sig it immediately.

[Zonkerbl]

Lewis slipped on a bar of soap and his face inadvertantly hit Cassell's championship ring.

LOL!!!!!!

[Zonkerbl]

It's NOT POSSIBLE for this team to be worse than last year's. It's just not.

Yes it is. Last year people dogged Hinrich and Thornton a lot, but how many players on this team are better than those 2?

Yi is garbage, but he could make open jumpers consistently.

Huh. I forgot about them completely.

Wow, is that sad or what? Our #1, franchise saving draft pick isn't even better than a has-been Kirk Hinrich? Ouch!

[montestewart]

Early in Jason Kidd's career, he often suffered from a roster similar to the Wizards roster, short on shooters, smart defenders, quality vets. he probably could have used a Hinrich too.

[hands11]

Quote of the night from Chris Singleton:

"What does 0 and 8 mean to you?"
"It means were losers"

End of interview

Singleton is for real. You can already tell he will be an NBA baller.
Booker is slowing showing signs of regaining the game he had at his peak last year when he got injured. If they haven't gotten the captain tag yet, I can see one or both getting it for a few games at some point this year.

This is quickly becoming the heart of the team. At least in style and effort. I think Jes will follow suit. And I think McGee is getting better. He is showing a lot more heart and smarts this year. I am impressed with the progress he is making on that post move.

Actually, Dray played with some heart himself. His energy is getting better the more they play as he is getting in better and better shape. I like how he went for that drive dunk after the miss. To bad he didnt get the foul call. He was hacked like a motha.

No group of players/position is what I would call "good" right now but relatively speaking, the PGs and Guard play is a bigger problem then the SF/PF/C play. I see those positions getting it together quicker and making more progress then the other two. Most the ill advised chucking is coming from PG and Guard. And since Wall isn't going anyway and we need guard help, I saw start shopping Crawford for a vet PG to help Wall. Wall and Crawford approach things to similarly for either to help the other. Blind leading the blind.