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I’ll say it again. The starting unit is terrible because they play 4 on 5. The other team doesn’t have to guard out PF position.

The lineups featuring Bertans/Gafford at the 4/5 were dynamite last season. Even when Gill jumped in there, he was a massive plus. Teams literally don’t guard Kuzma. They can easily help down on pick and rolls and clog the paint. We get nothing at the basket.

When we go to the bench, half the action on offense is just Aaron Holiday pick and rolls. He’s not athletic enough to even create separation, he has little to no vision or playmaking. It all leads to contested floaters and nothingness.

This team needs Bertans to get back to himself. The guy that led the wizards in on/off differential last season. He’s a massive positive impact player that provides loads of spacing on O.

Kuzma is not a good player. He shouldn’t even be in a rotation in the NBA. He’s a mediocre defender, he provides NO help defense (just like Markieff morris and Rui). He doesn’t get steals or blocks. He’s WILDLY inefficient. 51% TS is HORRIBLE. He’s been a boat anchor his entire career.

Until he comes back and massively improves, Rui is very similar. Solid man to man defender, but no team defense or rim protection, doesn’t rebound, inefficient on O.

We NEED to get healthy Bertans back to play 50% of the minutes at the 4, and Avdija needs to play the other 50%. Avdija has been our 2nd best player this year behind Harrell.

Kispert has also been a HUGE positive despite not making a ton of shots. He needs to play the extra minutes at the 3 that Avdija will give up moving to the 4 position.

It’s pretty simple. WUJ is better than Brooks, but he hasn’t actually shown to be one of those top tier coaches that really makes a difference. His rotation has been pretty uninspiring. He thinks way too much of Holiday, KCP, and Kuzma.

This is what we need to work towards:

Dinwiddie 28 Neto 20
Beal 32 Kispert 16
KCP 24 Avdija 16 Rui 8
Avdija 16 Bertans 24 Rui 8
Gafford 24 Harrell 24

You bet on Bertans and Neto getting back to their normal selves because they have been good for their entire careers. You dial it back with KCP and get Holiday and Kuzma far away.

Minutes leaders:

1. Kuzma 590
2. Beal 536
3. KCP 536
4. Harrell 506
5. Dinwiddie 473

On/Off differential:

1. Harrell 17.2
2. Kispert 17.0
3. Avdija 15.2
4. Neto 2.1
5. Beal -4.1

Pretty f’ing obvious that Avdija and Kuzma should be switched in terms of minutes played. Pretty obvious that Kispert should be given a bigger role as well, and that KCP is a fine player, but not all that good actually.

NatP4 wrote:I’ll say it again. The starting unit is terrible because they play 4 on 5. The other team doesn’t have to guard out PF position.

The lineups featuring Bertans/Gafford at the 4/5 were dynamite last season. Even when Gill jumped in there, he was a massive plus. Teams literally don’t guard Kuzma. They can easily help down on pick and rolls and clog the paint. We get nothing at the basket.

When we go to the bench, half the action on offense is just Aaron Holiday pick and rolls. He’s not athletic enough to even create separation, he has little to no vision or playmaking. It all leads to contested floaters and nothingness.

This team needs Bertans to get back to himself. The guy that led the wizards in on/off differential last season. He’s a massive positive impact player that provides loads of spacing on O.

Kuzma is not a good player. He shouldn’t even be in a rotation in the NBA. He’s a mediocre defender, he provides NO help defense (just like Markieff morris and Rui). He doesn’t get steals or blocks. He’s WILDLY inefficient. 51% TS is HORRIBLE. He’s been a boat anchor his entire career.

Until he comes back and massively improves, Rui is very similar. Solid man to man defender, but no team defense or rim protection, doesn’t rebound, inefficient on O.

We NEED to get healthy Bertans back to play 50% of the minutes at the 4, and Avdija needs to play the other 50%. Avdija has been our 2nd best player this year behind Harrell.

Kispert has also been a HUGE positive despite not making a ton of shots. He needs to play the extra minutes at the 3 that Avdija will give up moving to the 4 position.

It’s pretty simple. WUJ is better than Brooks, but he hasn’t actually shown to be one of those top tier coaches that really makes a difference. His rotation has been pretty uninspiring. He thinks way too much of Holiday, KCP, and Kuzma.

Kuzma doesn't deserve to be a rotation player in the NBA??? Who would you go replace him with? Bonga?

nate33 wrote:What did Brooks do differently to convert Gafford into a pretty effective offensive weapon whereas now, under Wes Jr., Gafford seems to be a lane-clogging offensive liability?

Was it just Westbrook? Or is there a difference in scheme at play?

Westbrook. He commands attention in the paint, and looks to score first. Teams load up to stop him on the drive, and his first read is to the Big. He is also inefficient, which means his Bigs stay active hunting for offensive boards off his copious misses. Notice Lopez had a career year from 2FG% as well. Steven Adams, Serge Ibaka and Enes Kantor also feasted on putbacks playing next to Russ.

My tweak would be Avdija at SF for Dinwiddie. See if Spencer can find a rhythm with the 2nd unit. I'd also probably use more Kispert & Bertans together for spacing with Dinwiddie & Harrell. Holiday & Neto would lose minutes.

Dat2U wrote:My tweak would be Avdija at SF for Dinwiddie. See if Spencer can find a rhythm with the 2nd unit. I'd also probably use more Kispert & Bertans together for spacing with Dinwiddie & Harrell. Holiday & Neto would lose minutes.

I'm not sure I understand.

Did you intend to start Beal at PG and KCP at SG?

I think we can put Dinwiddie on the 2nd unit without that much of a disruption. Just put him on the Westbrook rotation. Pull him from the starting unit after the first 5 minutes or so, and then have him come in when Beal sits. It's sort of what we are doing now, except Wes sometimes give us a couple of minutes of Neto and Holiday together before bringing Beal back for his 2nd shift of the half.

But I agree that we should try and trim the minutes of Neto and Holiday by going big. Play KCP more at SG and have Avdija, Kispert or Bertans fill in the minutes at SF. When Rui gets back, I wouldn't mind seeing a little small ball with Rui at center just to get some spacing out there.

Isnt that what WUJ is already doing? Taking Din out early ~ 6 min mark?

Seems like that is when both Deni and Neto usually come in.

Im wondering about Bertans... When TB is playing again, could he just take
DB's minutes? Would our defense really suffer by that substitution?
Even though he has gotten better in that regard, DB is still often a detriment
when he isn't hitting 3s.

It's hard to argue that TB should take minutes from either Gaff or definitely not Trez,
at least not many minutes.

FAH1223 wrote:

Read on Twitter

Interesting comp to Utah. I recall Giannis saying last mid-season he was hoping Milwaukee would play like Utah - because Utah played near perfect team ball. If the Wiz have the kind of season Utah had, I'd be ecstatic.

Holiday at the top for this game:

https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/advanced/?Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TeamID=1610612764&OpponentTeamID=1610612742&sort=NET_RATING&dir=1&GroupQuantity=2

Just listening to the Zach Lowe podcast from Nov 11. There was some Wizards talk and they mentioned that the Wizards opponents are taking the most midrange jumpers in the league, the fewest 3s and the 7th fewest shots at the rim.

tontoz wrote:Just listening to the Zach Lowe podcast from Nov 11. There was some Wizards talk and they mentioned that the Wizards opponents are taking the most midrange jumpers in the league, the fewest 3s and the 7th fewest shots at the rim.

There's more than 1 way to skin a cat, but going that way makes the most sense to me. Milwaukee, otoh, has had great success while giving up the most 3 attempts in the NBA - though they give up a low 3 point shooting %. They focus on taking away the shots at the rim and encouraging long 3 attempts.

dckingsfan wrote:Holiday at the top for this game:

https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/advanced/?Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TeamID=1610612764&OpponentTeamID=1610612742&sort=NET_RATING&dir=1&GroupQuantity=2

Curious, what's the value of 3-man lineups exactly?

queridiculo wrote:

dckingsfan wrote:Holiday at the top for this game:

https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/advanced/?Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TeamID=1610612764&OpponentTeamID=1610612742&sort=NET_RATING&dir=1&GroupQuantity=2

Curious, what's the value of 3-man lineups exactly?

That is a great question - in this case you can see that Holiday was in the groupings for all three. It definitely doesn't supply the entire picture. Doc turned me onto www.popcornmachine.net - I like that too but the game isn't up yet.

Note that one game is a super small sample size - it doesn't have any meaning really other than retrospectively for that specific game.

Note that I also like to look at the two man pairings (Kuz & Gafford vs Avidja & Harrell).

Is it going to tell Wes anything - no, they seem to have a good analytic bench there

Our point differential is now 0.1 which is worse than the 9-14 Pacers. The offense needs to improve or our record will start to suffer.

Wiz got some more love at the end of the Zach Lowe podcast from 11-23. He has access to all the crazy analytic stats. He said that the Wizards lead the league in...get this... the least distance between their defenders and opponent 3 point shooters.

He also gave a lot of credit to Wes about how disciplined they are on defense, calling out he oppositions plays, committing to fast break defense, making few rotation errors, etc.

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when is Rui coming back

Wiz need a starting lineup that won't immediately fall behind by 20 every game. It's getting ridiculous. Maybe start Harrell so the minute these guys' effort shows signs of being trash again, Harrell starts yelling at them.