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YOUR Washington Bullets are 36-28 AND 5-13 in their last 18 games. With 18 games left in the season, they are 6 games shy of being the 9th seed and 2 games back in the loss column from homecourt advantage in the first round. Which do you prefer? I prefer what gets Ted Leonsis to #FireGrunfeld. This will be a recurring theme.

The Wizards are coming off their most dominating win of the season which saw them control the paint with transition buckets and lots of Wall looking for his big men and orchestrating one of his best games in awhile. Gortat has been playing really well as of late and has even played a couple 4th quarters for a change. Monday night's game did have a type of Game 5 vs. Indiana in 2014 type feel.

The Memphis Grizzlies meet your Bullets for the first time this season on TNT! Memphis is perhaps the most battle tested group in the NBA outside of San Antonio. They have had runs with OKC, LAC, and SA in the playoffs the past few years in epic series featuring the same core of Gasol-Randolph-Conley.

Marc Gasol, the 2013 Defensive MVP, has slimmed down and has been playing the best basketball of his career. He's a perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate and he has reached into the conversation of being a fringe MVP candidate. ZBO is still ZBO and Mike Conley Jr. continues to be one of the most overlooked, underrated PGs in the NBA. Dave Joerger, one of the next great coaches and someone a lot of us on this board clamored for and told Uncle Ted about, has been impressive in his young career as the Grizzlies HC. MEM is now a top 10 offensive rated team and continues to play at their grit and grind pace. Courtney Lee has been a great floor spacer, Tony Allen is still an All-Defensive pest, and Jeff Green has started to make plays. The Grizzlies are the #2 seed in the West and are the team that no one wants to face in the postseason. The Grizzlies seemed poised for a run to the NBA Finals.

Will the Wizards be able to beat this battle tested bunch with one of the top coaches in the game? Grizzlies will be coming off a back to back vs. Boston, losng last night 95-92 and dropping their record to 45-19.

I doubt it. Look for MEM to win something like 98-91 in one of their patented close Ws.


UPDATE:

[tweet]https://twitter.com/BulletsForever/status/576070481557598209[/tweet]




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Last game:

Wizards vs. Hornets - (W) 95-69
Grizzlies vs. Celtics - (L) 92-95


Lineups:











Bench:

strong hairline on their backup PG.

Rogaine or buzz it, you balding grocery bagger.

AFM wrote:strong hairline on their backup PG.

Rogaine or buzz it, you balding grocery bagger.

Calathes is better than the trash we have at backup PG

Beno Udrih is also better than any trash we have

Last game of a four game road trip for MEM and its a back to back.

All things being equal, that's a better way to face them.

After a blow out against CHA, this would be a big win for the Wizards. Actually looking forward to seeing

Otto, Rasual, Webster step up since Temple will be out. I haven't bailed on Webster yet. Now way he has fallen off this badly. He just needs a legit spot to step up and he need touches in his spot. Corner 3 catch and shoot.

I actually think a large part of them losing was on Randy squarely on Randy. His approach got stale and he screwed up working out the peaking order by not giving the team form and in the process screwing up Gortat by getting away from him which was a total fail. Gortat should have always been a core of the team. Along with that he screwed up rotations, no 3 balls, etc. His just try harder 100% defense is our offense message got really old and stall. I think he was wearing the team down physically and mentally. That's an ok approach for 10-20 game or in the playoffs, but over a season, its tiring and mentally draining. And doing that while scoring 2pts at a time vs team draining 3s had the players thinking, ahh yaa. Not killing myself for this crap.

Also, he would talk like there were no stars. We don't have one guy we can give it to and say go score so everyone is equal so we have to move the ball 6 times before shooting, which is the opposite message I would have sent. I would have been saying, we have 5 quality options on offense with our starters who are all legit scorers/stars in different way. And all 5 have legit lead dog personalities as well so we need to give that group some structure. With a team like that, we need to establish a core 3 so we can establish a flow where the other players can fill in and play off the them. That way,everyone gets their opportunity to shine using their strength but at different times. With that, on any given night, that's going to require some players playing more of a support role so we can get something established which will allow us to get on a roll and then go to counter moves as teams try to stop our hot hands. That core on most night when we are healthy is Wall, Bradley and Gortat. Now on nights its makes sense and teams are overly focused on Bradley, we could go with more of a Wall, PP, Gortat and use Bradley as a more pure catch and shoot 3 which will open things up more of PP to drive and create his shot. When its Wall, Beal, Gortat, catch and shoot will be Pauls role with Brad driving more. Other nights Nene may have a great match up and we may use him more with something like Wall, Beal, Nene as the focus on offense. On those nights we are going to ask Gortat to focus on crashing the board and defending even more then he usually does. This approach also works well because Paul while a great player is older and Nene has had nagging injuries so we can keep him more fresh throughout the year and into the playoff when we are going to really need him most. Also, on nights Paul isn't a part of that starting core 3, we might ask him to come off the bench so Otto can run with the starters so we can grow his game so he can because a leader on the 2nd group until Paul retires and Otto is a full time starter. On nights Paul has it rolling are part the core three of the starters, we might pull Bradley early for Temple, Rasual or Martel to catch and shoot 3s. That will allow Bradley to bring his scoring punk to the second unit that night. And we will use Gooden with the second unit and starter to stretch the floor.

So you see, we have the talent to really challenge teams to match up with us because we have enough options to come at them different ways if they focus on any one things we can do. The key is going to be me establishing the right strategies to exploit the other team and making adjustment to maximize our talent while getting all these talented players on the same page. Managing roles, egos, minutes, legs. These guys are all very talented and when you are winning and everyone knows their roles, a team can really catch fire. I believe we have the talent to do that.

That's how I would have done it. Much more positive and much more structured and balance. But the key to all of that is coaching. Pops would have managed this more that way.

If we don't get raped, I consider that a big win, because they have advantages on the frontline and on the bench. And coaching too. And GM. And owner.

hands11 wrote:Last game of a four game road trip for MEM and its a back to back.

All things being equal, that's a better way to face them....

Yup.

And that's about it.... Memphis is a better team than the Wizards. Much better.

Of course we can still win the game. In the NBA, on any given night any team can beat any other team.

That's not because of coaching. This ain't the NFL, an extremely structured sport where coaching, strategy, etc. are key. The Skins could play the Pats ten weeks in a row and they'd be *extremely unlikely* to win even one of those games.

The NBA is a players' league. That's why we have 7-game playoff series rather than a single game. One or two guys can get hot on any given night, even though overall they're not as good as the opposing players, and that'd make the difference. You don't want that; you want the better team to move on, so it's a 7-game series.

"The NBA is a players' league." So, for example, when Rasual was shooting a lot of 3s and making them at a clip approaching 50%, we were winning a lot of games. Duh -- no kidding! And, when he regressed to his norm.... Don't mean to pick on Rasual, but was it really a surprise?

Mental narratives about when's the exact right moment to put Rasual in the game, or Martell (whose career is over) are just mental movies. Fantasies -- related to the word "fan."

All the same, like Hands, I'm looking forward to the game tonight. Lets steal one. We can still get to 41 or 42 wins this season.

TGW wrote:If we don't get raped, I consider that a big win, because they have advantages on the frontline and on the bench. And coaching too. And GM. And owner.

Robert Pera plays one on one with Tony Allen.

payitforward wrote:

hands11 wrote:Last game of a four game road trip for MEM and its a back to back.

All things being equal, that's a better way to face them....

Yup.

And that's about it.... Memphis is a better team than the Wizards. Much better.

Of course we can still win the game. In the NBA, on any given night any team can beat any other team.

That's not because of coaching. This ain't the NFL, an extremely structured sport where coaching, strategy, etc. are key. The Skins could play the Pats ten weeks in a row and they'd be *extremely unlikely* to win even one of those games.

The NBA is a players' league. That's why we have 7-game playoff series rather than a single game. One or two guys can get hot on any given night, even though overall they're not as good as the opposing players, and that'd make the difference. You don't want that; you want the better team to move on, so it's a 7-game series.

"The NBA is a players' league." So, for example, when Rasual was shooting a lot of 3s and making them at a clip approaching 50%, we were winning a lot of games. Duh -- no kidding! And, when he regressed to his norm.... Don't mean to pick on Rasual, but was it really a surprise?

Mental narratives about when's the exact right moment to put Rasual in the game, or Martell (whose career is over) are just mental movies. Fantasies -- related to the word "fan."

All the same, like Hands, I'm looking forward to the game tonight. Lets steal one. We can still get to 41 or 42 wins this season.

Which game was that recently where we got out-hustled by a team playing on a B2B? Us playing on a B2B has been more of factor than us playing an opposing team that is on a B2B.

Kevin Seraphin vs. Koastas is going to work out hilariously bad for us. As well as Gooden against Leur. As well Green V. Pierce. As well their guards vs our guards... Wall might be the only guy that is at their level..wow. I expect a 15 point loss. Anything less would be a surprise.

hands11 wrote:I haven't bailed on Webster yet. Now way he has fallen off this badly. He just needs a legit spot to step up and he need touches in his spot. Corner 3 catch and shoot.

Nah. Webster's body clearly isn't right this year. He's noticeably slower and stiffer and it affects everything the does. We are way past the point where "rust" can be the explanation for his awful play. He just doesn't belong on the court right now. Maybe it'll get better with another offseason of healing and rehab, but it's not going to happen this year.

Webster shouldn't be on this team period. Grunfail got fooled once again by the career contract year.

Wizards actually matchup pretty well with the Grizzlies, wouldn't be surprised to see Washington pull out a double digit win.

Oh never mind, I forgot they picked up Jeff Green a while ago, notorious Wizards killer.

nate33 wrote:

hands11 wrote:I haven't bailed on Webster yet. Now way he has fallen off this badly. He just needs a legit spot to step up and he need touches in his spot. Corner 3 catch and shoot.

Nah. Webster's body clearly isn't right this year. He's noticeably slower and stiffer and it affects everything the does. We are way past the point where "rust" can be the explanation for his awful play. He just doesn't belong on the court right now. Maybe it'll get better with another offseason of healing and rehab, but it's not going to happen this year.

I'd much rather bring David Stockton onto the roster than bring Webster out to play anymore games

Tough matchup. They're basically built like us but do what we do better.

I have the Wizards as coin flip underdogs on this one.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/cmillscsn/status/575707727386787840[/tweet]

Call me crazy again but Im laying big money on a win, us covering, and Wall with the over on points. I think the team and Wall got the mojo back a lil

nate33 wrote:

hands11 wrote:I haven't bailed on Webster yet. Now way he has fallen off this badly. He just needs a legit spot to step up and he need touches in his spot. Corner 3 catch and shoot.

Nah. Webster's body clearly isn't right this year. He's noticeably slower and stiffer and it affects everything the does. We are way past the point where "rust" can be the explanation for his awful play. He just doesn't belong on the court right now. Maybe it'll get better with another offseason of healing and rehab, but it's not going to happen this year.

Respect your view Nate, but I'm not seeing that.

What I saw was normal rust for a player who hadn't played all summer and was returning from back surgery. He was looking uncomfortable out there which I totally understood. But he took a few physical shots. He took the charges. And he got up. After surgery you have to go threw that. He didn't play scared and I respect that. Look how long it took Rose to get confident again.

Then he was out again when he banged knees. So he hardly got out of the gate and he was out again.

I saw a steady increase in how he moved out there. And I saw him even make some athletic moves like that dunk.

Add all of that to ... they are not setting him up for the corner three like they used to. The offense looked like ass. And what I saw he them asking him to run plays that weren't Webby plays. Same thing they did to Gortat when he was looking like ass.

And very small a sample size. Just not enough there to say he is done. Also keep in mind, he hasn't played this little in a long time. By long time I mean like never. Since he has been here, he has been 25 to 34 min a night player.. even a starter.

I don't know when it will happen, but I expect a Webster break out one night soon. And with Temple missing some games, he might get a legit shot at it.

As I said before, he has logged just enough practice and games that I would expect the rust to be mostly kicked off where he is more physically and mentally ready to show us some old Webby given a legit shot to show it. My main question with him is, can he be productive in spot minutes. Keep in mind, Webby is a rhythm shooter that rarely logged less then 20 min a game and played most nights over the last two years and his career. If he wasn't injured, he was getting regular play and mins at 20 or greater.

Keep in mind players like. Trevor A. Okafor. Rasual to name few. Even Gortat this year.

People like to talk about reverting the mean. Well, lets give Webster a little longer before we call him done.

Higga wrote:Tough matchup. They're basically built like us but do what we do better.

We played them well last year.

Lost by 6 and 3

The Grizz are another example of a play off team who was very active in trades and signing players mid season. . . Why does the Wiz front office refuse to believe that fixing whats broke is a good thing!