GT #66: Bullets @ Bucks 8 PM EST

[closg00]

Just looking at the minutes distribution should get our moron coach of the month fired:

Ish 22 mins (2 pts, 0/6 FG) vs Matthews 12 mins (8 pts, 1/2 FG and great defensive plays).

Lopez/Len 34 mins (5/10 FG, 10 reb) vs Gafford 14 mins (4/6 FG, 10 reb).

As they won’t fire Brooks, at least someone from the front office should impose a hard limit on the playing time of Scotty favorite vet pets. For the love of God, Gafford and Matthews have a future with the Wiz, the vets don’t!

Someone correct me if i'm wrong, but I understand that Brooks has some kind of an actual chart or plan for the minutes distribution

[nate33]

Haven't watched the game yet, but after reading this thread, it really looks like we could have used Rui. It sounds like the team collapsed into the lane to stop Giannis and gave up open 3's. With Rui, maybe they could have had more success defending him straight up without so much help.

I'm not saying Rui would have shut Giannis down or anything. But my guess is that Giannis would have scored at will tonight if not for all the help defense. Giannis doesn't score at will against Rui. Rui at least makes him work a bit.

[CobraCommander]

Beal with three straight threes. So much for him not being clutch.

But are they really clutch? When game is theoretically out of reach he is blazing hot......game in the balance....shaky at the line and missing open 3s.

Game was "theoretically out of reach?" What the hell are you talking about?

Beal makes BIG shots to give his team a chance to win and still the haters gonna hate.

You miss understand...clutch would be making those free throws earlier in the 4th.

If you have played ball you know it’s harder mentally to make the 3 when you down by 2 than it is when you down by 5 and the less time left in the game the harder it gets.

Beal isn’t clutch in high leverage moments. Beal dribbled off his foot and Neto (extremely clutch) gave him the ball back for a open 3...and you saw that sequence in the Dallas game. You think Luka does that or misses that shot....Beals our guy but he isn’t clutch or hasn’t been...remember when we beat the nets...his long three normally would be stat padding - it was Russ that nailed the critical one after who stole the ball

[tontoz]

Haven't watched the game yet, but after reading this thread, it really looks like we could have used Rui. It sounds like the team collapsed into the lane to stop Giannis and gave up open 3's. With Rui, maybe they could have had more success defending him straight up without so much help.

I'm not saying Rui would have shut Giannis down or anything. But my guess is that Giannis would have scored at will tonight if not for all the help defense. Giannis doesn't score at will against Rui. Rui at least makes him work a bit.

Yeah but they didn't have Middleton.

We could have easily won with better rotations from our "Coach of the Month".

[CobraCommander]

[youtube][/youtube]

We missed 11 foul shots.

They made 18 3s. That is 54 pts lol.

Can I get an amen- game

[DCZards]

But are they really clutch? When game is theoretically out of reach he is blazing hot......game in the balance....shaky at the line and missing open 3s.

Game was "theoretically out of reach?" What the hell are you talking about?

Beal makes BIG shots to give his team a chance to win and still the haters gonna hate.

You miss understand...clutch would be making those free throws earlier in the 4th.

If you have played ball you know it’s harder mentally to make the 3 when you down by 2 than it is when you down by 5 and the less time left in the game the harder it gets.

Beal isn’t clutch in high leverage moments. Beal dribbled off his foot and Neto (extremely clutch) gave him the ball back for a open 3...and you saw that sequence in the Dallas game. You think Luka does that or misses that shot....Beals our guy but he isn’t clutch or hasn’t been...remember when we beat the nets...his long three normally would be stat padding - it was Russ that nailed the critical one after who stole the ball

You have no idea what's "mentally" hard or easy for another human being. So don't even go there.

"Stat padding"!!! Are you freaking kidding me? If Beal doesn’t make that long range 3 against the Nets the Zards lose that game. Simple as that. It doesn't matter what Russ or anyone else does after that. That three was the epitome of clutch.

Why is it so hard for you to give BB his props? He's not perfect...but he's damn good.

[Ruzious]

But are they really clutch? When game is theoretically out of reach he is blazing hot......game in the balance....shaky at the line and missing open 3s.

Game was "theoretically out of reach?" What the hell are you talking about?

Beal makes BIG shots to give his team a chance to win and still the haters gonna hate.

You miss understand...clutch would be making those free throws earlier in the 4th.

If you have played ball you know it’s harder mentally to make the 3 when you down by 2 than it is when you down by 5 and the less time left in the game the harder it gets.

Beal isn’t clutch in high leverage moments. Beal dribbled off his foot and Neto (extremely clutch) gave him the ball back for a open 3...and you saw that sequence in the Dallas game. You think Luka does that or misses that shot....Beals our guy but he isn’t clutch or hasn’t been...remember when we beat the nets...his long three normally would be stat padding - it was Russ that nailed the critical one after who stole the ball

It does seem to work out - If we're down 10 or so points - Beal is the ideal guy to get that down to 1. But when going for the win, the last thing we want is a jump-shot from Beal - which is what he almost always ends up settling for. I think if he'd drive to the basket a lot more on those potential game-winning plays, he'd have a lot more success. If the drive is stopped because of a double-team - pass to an open shooter.

[doclinkin]

Yeah it was a loss, but as with Dallas and the Spurs I liked this game and am impressed with how this team is growing. Any of: a little better coaching, a little more Gafford, a healthy Rui, a single pass out of a double team, or a little better bias in the refereeing, or even 2 inches to the left on Mathews final heave, and we are talking about a tough win against one of the better teams in the East. In any case it is fun to be in every game with a chance to win. Neat to see this team developing chemistry, even getting good minutes out of Gill with Hachimura out.

[closg00]

Why can't we run 3pt plays for mega-bucks Bertans or even Matthews, we're gonna need that when they pack the paint in the playoffs, Wiz got out-couched.

[tontoz]

Side note: Seems like it's been a long time since Bertans had a hot shooting night.

[dobrojim]

Why don’t we f***** defend the 3 pt line????? Again and again we are giving up easy 3 pointers. Sorry, this is on our moron coach of the month

As much as I don't really care for Drew G, he kept pressing this point during the broadcast,
don't sacrifice defending the 3 (way too many wide looks) for the sake of challenging 2s better.

[pancakes3]

i didn't watch the game either but looking at the box score, although based off the minutes played, i assume the lineups were a little headscratchy but given how close the game appeared to be, it worked to an extent. seems like it just came down to Ish Smith laying an egg. He makes even 1 of his 6 attempts and we could have won.

[dobrojim]

Damn. Dumb play by the Bucks. No harm, no foul. Have to come back and beat Toronto and take care of business against a Pacers team that has given up. No biggie. We can basically run the table or come close.

I'm concerned about the ATL games. We haven't played them well recently.
The important thing is to beat TOR tonight and IND after that.

[dobrojim]

tough loss.
I really like the way this team is playing. I'll take this into the playoffs.

What really sucks is how will they played against San Antonio, Dallas, and Milwaukee; only for all three to be losses.

And this should be of concern when the play-in game(s) begin. No 2nd chances.

[dobrojim]

Beal and Westbrook each need accountability on perimeter lack of defense.

They gave up just as much as they scored today.

There was also a play where Beal didn't hustle back quite hard enough
and we gave up an easy bucket. Can't do that given the stakes and the
level of the opp.

[dobrojim]

What a shame…Matthews almost got it.

Brooks you moron this one loss is on YOU

It’s just completely unfair at this point how he lets Ish play and the short leash he has on Matthews. This game was lost with dumb rotations throughout. Sitting Gafford for extended periods, letting Bonga play at all (again that dude needs to either be G Leagued or let go), let Ish go shot hunting when he’s literally been ice cold all season.

But all in all, this game was truly lost at the three point line. Not only were they going vessel from three but we were missing great looks all game long until Beal made a couple close at the end to make it interesting.

Connaughton hit two threes. Forbes hit one all ina little over a minute with around three minutes remaining.

Beal and Westbrook are typically looking to score late; and I think this is why the Wizards don’t make stops late. There’s only so much energy to expend. They play heavy minutes.

Teams are killing the Wizards with threes.

As we're trying to fight back, we were trading 3s for twos. Obviously not a winning strategy,
at least not against the Bucks.

[dobrojim]

From 5:35 left in the game to 3:45 left in the game, we went 4-8 from the free throw line. That was the game.

If you wish, but in a close loss, it's kinda take your pick wrt which play "cost us the game".
I think defensive lapses allowing wide open 3s to capable shooters was a huge problem
in this game. The FT misses were definitely untimely though.

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

Ish just continues to give us empty minutes. It's not even that he's missing shots, but he's taking shots and dribbling the ball in a way that kills any type of cohesion.

Beal's game was the type where the box score doesn't match the on court impact, just looked lazy out there a lot not making the right plays, forcing the issue.

Their bench trio of Teague, Forbes, and Connaugton killed us being 8-16 from downtown. I say let GA beat you force him to expend a lot of energy driving, make tough jumpers, and make some boneheaded offensive fouls in the process.

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

Haven't watched the game yet, but after reading this thread, it really looks like we could have used Rui. It sounds like the team collapsed into the lane to stop Giannis and gave up open 3's. With Rui, maybe they could have had more success defending him straight up without so much help.

I'm not saying Rui would have shut Giannis down or anything. But my guess is that Giannis would have scored at will tonight if not for all the help defense. Giannis doesn't score at will against Rui. Rui at least makes him work a bit.

Spot on Nate. That’s IMO exactly how it went down

[Ruzious]

Haven't watched the game yet, but after reading this thread, it really looks like we could have used Rui. It sounds like the team collapsed into the lane to stop Giannis and gave up open 3's. With Rui, maybe they could have had more success defending him straight up without so much help.

I'm not saying Rui would have shut Giannis down or anything. But my guess is that Giannis would have scored at will tonight if not for all the help defense. Giannis doesn't score at will against Rui. Rui at least makes him work a bit.

Spot on Nate. That’s IMO exactly how it went down

I think it's mostly irrelevant. Giannis was obviously playing at half speed, and again - Milwaukee was playing without Middleton. This reminds me a bit of when we were lauding Rui after he played well against Lebron - while it was obvious Lebron was playing at less than half-speed. Yes, we would have done better if Rui played, but it's not a valid excuse for losing the game. We were giving up open 3's when Giannis was out of the game - not just when he was in it.