10/30/13 Wizards @ Pistons SEASON OPENER GT

[dckingsfan]

I think Wall and Beal should be frustrated that they couldn't outplay Billups and Bynum. They have to come out and literally outplay opposing backcourts. And now I am even more concerned about Maynor. Wall is going to need to play 40 min/night at this rate.

[Nivek]

Nene was clearly the goat of the game IMO. He simply couldn't or wouldn't match the intensity of the Pistons frontline and as the game wore on, Nene appeared beaten and resigned to observer status. That was never more evident that the dropped passes in the 4th quarter. That's a bad sign IMO. Game 1 and your already looking tired and beaten down? Where will he be physically and mentally by game 41?

And then there's the news this morning that he has a calf injury.

[tontoz]

Nene was clearly the goat of the game IMO. He simply couldn't or wouldn't match the intensity of the Pistons frontline and as the game wore on, Nene appeared beaten and resigned to observer status. That was never more evident that the dropped passes in the 4th quarter. That's a bad sign IMO. Game 1 and your already looking tired and beaten down? Where will he be physically and mentally by game 41?

And then there's the news this morning that he has a calf injury.

Probably another case of I-got-paid-itis.

It is definitely discouraging to see him so lifeless for the opener.

[Dat2U]

Nene was clearly the goat of the game IMO. He simply couldn't or wouldn't match the intensity of the Pistons frontline and as the game wore on, Nene appeared beaten and resigned to observer status. That was never more evident that the dropped passes in the 4th quarter. That's a bad sign IMO. Game 1 and your already looking tired and beaten down? Where will he be physically and mentally by game 41?

And then there's the news this morning that he has a calf injury.

Which is a total shock. And as much as he's been whining this preseason about not playing heavy minutes and not playing C... it wouldn't surprise me if he's more than comfortable with sitting out a few games.

I told myself game one would be a sign of things to come, good or bad. Grunfeld & Witt better hope I'm wrong.

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

Flawed and shortsighted as it is, I think this roster has enough parts to crack the elusive .500 mark. I don't know about Wittman, though. What exactly is it on his resume that leads anyone to believe that he can direct a winner?

I like the guy. I like that he is tough and straightforward and mostly has the group committed to defense. However, I don't see the consistent in game adjustments... he seems to get too emotionally wrapped up in the game to rise above and think a move or two ahead.

Not blaming him for last night... just not enthused about our chances long term with him at the helm.

[GhostsOfGil]

Injury update: Nene calf. Could miss a few games.

[Nivek]

On the bright side, the pressure of going undefeated is off the team's shoulders. Now they can get down to playing some quality basketball.

[Dat2U]

Injury update: Nene calf. Could miss a few games.

And so it begins.

[SUPERBALLMAN]

It's just the first game, and on the road at that, but just some observations...

Don't have the numbers, but seemed Wall shot the ball too much. I know he's feeling better about his shot, but that's not his game.

Nene looked terrible. He looked heavy and slow and soft. I know he can play better. He seemed frustrated with the physicality of the game and lack of help from the refs. Think we're better off with keeping Nene at the 4 and going with Gortat backed by Seraphin as much as possible at C.

Harrington looked rusty, expect him to play better as season goes on, but he's not a very good shooter, to call him a stretch 4 is a stretch.

Booker was overmatched. He doesn't look quite 100% to me either.

Our guard depth is troubling. Maynor is not good. I liked Price, he could hit some 3 and played pretty tough D. He must of burned his bridge here somehow the way Ernie was so fast go lock up Maynor as his replacement, and never even talked to him about coming back even in a lesser role. Temple is not good either. I'm with CCJ on why we wouldn't of kept Shannon Brown, he could of been useful. We kept Singleton instead who I don't see coming off the bench even when healthy. I mean we don't have a backup guard who can really just come in and shoot. Maybe once Otto comes back we use Webster more at SG. Detroit had rookie Calwell-Pope out there, not sure why we couldn't have gotten Rice out there at all. Mad when I see Will Bynum cause I noticed him when we was lighting it up on the Dakota Wizards (when they were our Dleague team) and thought he'd be a good pickup for us.

Webster started this way last season if I remember, coming off the bench & trying too hard to fit in and wait for his spots not forcing things. He had to be prodded by his teammates to shoot more.

Ariza looked good. Don't know if we can get this from him consistantly, but if so it makes the draft of Otto more questionable. Ariza was our best player last night.

Beal was ok. Hit some nice shots. Wasn't his best game, but he certainly wasn't why we lost.

Gortat was impressive in his 1st game. He was our best front court player already. Played physical and fundamentally solid. Hopefully Nene comes around and these 2 can form a solid tandem inside.

Detroit looks good. We'll see how the season progresses. Josh Smith was a good addition for them, as was Billups. And guess they get Stuckey and Jennings back as some point.

Miami, Indiana, Chicago are the top of the East, then we got New York, Brooklyn, Detroit as the teams I think we can compete with if things come together well, or we are competing for the 7-8 seed.

[Dark Faze]

I knew it was going to be a bad year for Nene after I heard him complain about Brook Lopez's physicality in the first preseason game.

I was at that game and had great seats, Brook was a handful for sure, but he wasn't even banging, just getting boards and putting in some hookshots.

What Monroe did to him probably had him contemplating retirement in comparison.

[dobrojim]

Wall's having a *tough* time staying in front of Bynum.

that turned out to be one of the themes of the night.

[jivelikenice]

which is why it was stupid not to pursue a smaller pg in FA (like Bynum or Nate) who could play with Wall or push Wall. What work does John get against small guards outside of game action? He goes against Maynor who is a soft defensive player or Temple, who is solid, but is a longer defender. When does he ever practice against smallish pgs?

[dobrojim]

Pitiful offense so far. Jumper after jumper, setting the Pistons up for easy points in transition.

This. We're not getting to the rim. I know the PIstons have a big front line, but I'd like to see us challenge them a bit more.

The Pistons got more freq penetration and passed the ball better than we did.
Result - they shot a lot better than we did.

Wall and Beal shot mediocre-ly but I was more concerned with how they played
defensively than the fact their shots were not falling. Our offense wasn't working
well enough to get them consistent good looks. Our D didn't get us enough transistion
buckets.

[dandridge 10]

Good:
Wall looked fantastic in the second half. Like he FINALLY realized to start attacking. 20 and 11.
Gortat on offense.

Bad.
Our interior defense is just awful.. but that may have been compounded by the Monroe Drummond monster combo.
Webster.
Gortat on defense.
Maynor. Enough said.

Actually, I thought our perimeter defense was worse. Wall and Beal allowed way too much penetration by Bynum and Billups all game. Half of Monroe and Drummond's points were from dishes after Bynum and Billups beat Wall or Beal.

Gortat and Ariza looked good.

Wall looked much better in the second half, but he needs to learn how to stay in front of quicker guards.

Nene sucked. I think he is my least favorite player on the team. I just can't stand how he glares or complains at the ref EVERY SINGLE PLAY.

I wasn't sure but at times it looked like we were funneling the penetration to our bigs, problem is, our bigs weren't very successful at challenging shots (specifically Nene & Gortat). Then other times it looked like a complete mess our there, it looked like we were funneling ball-handlers right to the rim unimpeded. Wall has ALWAYS had problems with Bynum. Small, speedy guys like that have ALWAYS given him huge problems defensively.

The defense is designed to funnel offensive players to the sides or to the baseline, not to the middle of the lane. Beal and Wall to beat to the middle several times.

There were also times when our perimeter players funneled players toward the baseline or the sideline, but the bigs were late in rotation. I specifically recall Webster funneling Singler to the sideline but he drove and Gortat was late to give help, resulting in a 3 point play. However, I think that most of Beal and Walls mistakes were due to not keeping their man out of the paint, as opposed to funneling them to the sidelines or baseline.

[jivelikenice]

Nene was clearly the goat of the game IMO. He simply couldn't or wouldn't match the intensity of the Pistons frontline and as the game wore on, Nene appeared beaten and resigned to observer status. That was never more evident that the dropped passes in the 4th quarter. That's a bad sign IMO. Game 1 and your already looking tired and beaten down? Where will he be physically and mentally by game 41?

And then there's the news this morning that he has a calf injury.

Probably a blessing in disguise as far as Im concerned. There's too much standing around with Nene on the court. The backcourt will be forced to be more aggressively active and hopefully we'll see some more small ball (not that I wanted to see that yesterday v. Detroit's front line). I know this may sound crazy, but I'm hoping Nene is out a bit and we start Gortat at the 5, and when Nene comes back they make the decision to bring him off the bench with the 2nd unit.

[jivelikenice]

They'll NEVER figure out the smart play is to start Gortat with Vesely. Bring Nene off the bench. Let Booker wait.

100% agree.

[dobrojim]

Stuck at a sports bar in Cleveland. Can't watch the Wizards. Cleveland looks good though.

good win for them. They dominated BRK on the boards. Tristan is playing like
you would hope a #4 pick would play.

Snatch-mo 0-5

[dobrojim]

Of course Josh Smith decides to show off his incredibly inconsistent jumpshot against us.

One of those nights. We got him to take the shots we wanted him to take and
he hit's 3 of them. Of course we could have done a better job challenging the
shots but then he might not have taken them.

[jivelikenice]

Yeah...you live with those shots from Josh.

[stevemcqueen1]

detroit fan here. can i just ask what the deal was with you guys shooting nothing but jumpshots all night? is that normal for this team? ive never considered anyone other than beal and webster as knockdown shooters.. obviously ariza got a ton of good looks, got hot and knocked them down, but i was shocked at how little amount of times you guys spent in the paint. how much credit can i give our frontcourt for that? i think we won the points in the paint by about 30.

I think the frontline of Drummond, Smith & Monroe had something to do with that.

We had a dumb strategy. The #1 thing our offense should have accomplished was get Drummond in foul trouble ASAP. As soon as we started taking it inside, he racked up fouls. We should have been working the ball inside every possession in the first quarter. Instead we hit two easy jumpers right off the bad and fell in love with it. And Drummond got rolling and set a physical tone to the game we never recovered from.