I know you’re still skeptical, D.C. I know it.
How could you not be, after 40 years?
Forget Bradley Beal’s earned skepticism of this franchise for a minute. Think of the people you’ve seen, year in and year out, at the Capital Centre and Capital One Arena. Folks that paid their good, hard-earned money on season tickets for decades. Decades. And all of the horrible, awful, no-good basketball they’ve seen in this city, regime after regime. They have every right not to believe their eyes.
But look at the Eastern Conference standings after two weeks. Look at ’em. Get your faces up in there:
Those are the Washington Wizards, at 7-3, after beating the defending champion Bucks on Sunday night, in front of a very engaged crowd of 15,570 at COA, on an NFL Sunday. Those are the Wizards, who made the right plays at both ends of the floor down the stretch, after Milwaukee cut a 12-point fourth-quarter lead to four. That was Deni Avdija making the right read in the final minute, flashing to the elbow to relieve the Bucks’ ball pressure on Beal, and hitting Spencer Dinwiddie on the left wing, and Dinwiddie splashing the game-clinching 3. It was only the second shot he’d made all night.
For sure, the Bucks were not their normal selves Sunday. Khris Middleton and Brook Lopez — arguably the heart and soul of Milwaukee’s championship squad last summer — were out, as was Donte DiVincenzo. As such, meaningful rotation minutes were allocated to assorted Semi Ojeleyes and Justin Robinsons (not that we don’t love the former Virginia Techer) throughout the night in service to Giannis Antetokounmpo. Jrue Holiday was frigid from the floor (6-of-18), Antetokounmpo from the line (5-of-12). But no one has cared when Washington has gone out there short-handed over the years since … well, when did John Wall and Gilbert Arenas get hurt, again?
The Wizards built as sturdy a wall against Antetokounmpo, the two-time MVP, as their roster allows. So Kyle Kuzma took his turn, and Avdija his, and Daniel Gafford stoned the Greek Freak at the rim. Antetokounmpo scored 29 points but needed 26 shots to do so.
“I didn’t want to be on a highlight tonight,” Gafford said afterward.
These are the Wizards, who beat Ja Morant’s Grizzlies on Friday and who have beaten Jayson Tatum’s Celtics twice, and Trae Young’s Hawks, and Toronto. Those are quality wins, and you can dismiss them if you like — but only if you dismissed the wins when Washington got off to its usual 9-20 start to a season (“9-20″© 1989, Anthony Irwin Kornheiser, Kornheiser Enterprises, Inc.). Washington beat Indiana without Beal, and Atlanta without Dinwiddie; the Wizards beat the Celtics when they didn’t shoot it well, and the Hawks when they did.
You know how many times the Wizards/Bullets/Zephyrs/Packers franchise has gotten off to a 7-3 start to open a season?
Try four times.
Four. In 61 seasons.
Four.
(1.) This season. (2.) In 2014. (3.) The 1974-75 team — the great one that went 60-22 in the regular season, throttled Boston in the Eastern Finals and made the NBA Finals, only to be swept by Golden State — has the franchise’s high-water 10-game mark at 8-2. (4.) And the last team that went 7-3 before then was … the 1968-69 squad.
That’s it. That’s the list.
This is where, and how, belief begins.
It doesn’t mean that Washington is a finished product, that general manager Tommy Sheppard should be done making moves or that Wes Unseld Jr. is done coaching this group. But it means there’s something here, in this group, that feels real. Something you can build upon. Something beyond lottery-watching after New Year’s or Beal-watching at the trade deadline.
The Wizards are fifth in the league after 10 games in defensive rating — the gold standard of whether a team actually gives a (bleep) night in and night out on stopping the opposition — at 103.1 points allowed per 100 possessions. Three-point defense comes and goes; it evens out over time. But defensive rating is real. The Wizards also lead the league in opponent fast-break points allowed, giving up just 8.2 a game thus far. Those are real things, and they tend to reinforce what Unseld’s M.O. was in Denver as Mike Malone’s top assistant, the guy who made the Nuggets into a very good defensive team.
There’s Montrezl Harrell’s boundless energy, to be sure, and playing hard most certainly is a skill. There’s Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s switch ability, his lack of fear at the end of a game. But there are also signs of real growth in Avdija in his second season. He’s earning minutes with quality defense, not by scoring; he took only three shots Sunday. But he was on the floor in crunch time because he’d earned it by doing effective work on the glass — nine rebounds in 27 minutes — and not getting posterized by Antetokounmpo or Bobby Portis.
“I can speak on Deni,” Beal said. “I turned the ball over late in the game. Deni cut, and I threw it to him, and I feel like he was a little too far, and I think (Pat) Connaughton jumped the ball and stole it. The same play, they jumped me again, and I hit (Avdija) in the middle and he came a little closer to me, and he met the ball. I trust everybody. It doesn’t matter who’s in the game. At the end of the game, it required me to do that more, get off the ball. I’d already turned it over more than enough. Being able to trust my teammates in those situations is — I wish I could really explain how I feel. It’s amazing. ‘Cause it shows our growth and our maturity. ‘Cause in years past, we wouldn’t close out these close games. We’d fumble it, find a way to trick it off.”
We’re still so early in the season that Wednesday’s game between the Wizards and Cavaliers is, laughably, a big one. Cleveland is 7-4 after smoking the Knicks at the Garden on Sunday night. Everything’s ridiculous.
But what if, this year, the Wizards aren’t?
