10/30/13 Wizards @ Pistons SEASON OPENER GT

[dobrojim]

Why do I hate Singler so much? Is it because he looks like an Indiana Jones villain?

I couldn't believe how far he moved after getting that rebound.
I thought enforcing traveling was going to be a pt of emphasis.

honestly though, I see similar (but not as bad) plays a lot, esp
when a player catches a pass at the elbow and then get def pressure.
They'll wind up outside the 3 pt line with nothing called.

[stevemcqueen1]

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.

On the contrary, I think you have to go small to make Detroit go small because we don't have the bigs to match up apparently. Get those guys out of the paint and space the floor. Make them guard the 3 pt line.

That'll only work if the defense doesn't play like **** though. Got to be able to get stops and rebounds and push the tempo to go small effectively.

[payitforward]

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.

Ummm, if we hadn't fallen in love w/ those quarter1 jumpers, we'd have been buried early.

[dobrojim]

Nene with 2 rebounds.

and our normally solid rebounding starting guards didn't get theirs either.

that said, I agree 2 boards ain't getting it done from your starting 4. Oops
he started at the 5. Either way.

But as someone posted earlier, our def rotations were leaving wide open
lanes for DET to grab boards.

[dobrojim]

Good news guys....we're keeping our pick this year.

Clearly you don't know the Wizards.

We'll make the playoffs with a 39 win record, get swept in the first round, while the Suns win the lottery with our pick and we'll be left with a smoldering heap of crap.

you're forgetting that can't happen. It's the actual pick that is protected,
not the position in the lottery pre-drawing.

[dobrojim]

I see that late whistles are apparently a point of emphasis this season.

LOL

True. In their defense though, I think a couple of those late whistles and
changed calls resulted in the right call being made.

[dobrojim]

Wall's passing is back on par to the end of last season. All this preseason it was basic but he's back to making crazy good passes again, including the cross court stuff. Should have atleast 15ast tonigh

on an off night he still got a dub-dub.

[dobrojim]

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.

+1

although I'm not yet as negative on Nene. Yet.

Dead on about our Gs allowing way too much penetration. Of course their bigs
had a field day when they were getting spoon fed easy shots all game.

[payitforward]

An awful lot of post-mortem analysis here; hey, we haven't died yet!

We lost to a very motivated team in its home opener; not the end of the world.

Gortat had 5 fouls and 3 TOs in 17 minutes -- that's a first game line and reflects only his limited practice time. The boards reflect what he can bring. He'll be a big help.

John Wall needs to look in the mirror and get serious. His play in the first half was horrendous. He better figure out that, no, he's not a "superstar" (as I was astonished to hear Buck call him in the pre-game!!), he's not a star, he's a guy with something to prove, and he needs to bear down and prove it. I'm sure we'll see much better play from him.

Beal looked tentative when he got the ball; he didn't have a first move ready for the level of coverage he was getting. He'll look at video and come out strong on Friday.

Ariza -- wow. He really does have a *strong* game.

Maynor looked a little more solid than in pre-season. Still, I don't see the upgrade over Price -- who should have been rewarded IMO for the good-ish season he had w/ us.

[dobrojim]

Ariza was phenomenal. He is a solid vet playing for his next contract.
But he is not doing that every night. We need a plan B for who is going
to score. Hopefully Harrington who I also expect will be inconsistent but
will have nights where he goes off.

Nene being hurt will probably move KS back into the main rotation.
WIth how Nene played, maybe that'll be a wash. I agree with whoever
said a bigger body ie KS on DET's bigs might have been helpful.
Or go MIA (small) on them. Play Ariza at the 4, Webster 3.

[Nivek]

Maynor looked a little more solid than in pre-season. Still, I don't see the upgrade over Price -- who should have been rewarded IMO for the good-ish season he had w/ us.

Especially since the "reward" could have been another one-year, minimum salary contract.

[Ruzious]

An awful lot of post-mortem analysis here; hey, we haven't died yet!

We lost to a very motivated team in its home opener; not the end of the world.

Gortat had 5 fouls and 3 TOs in 17 minutes -- that's a first game line and reflects only his limited practice time. The boards reflect what he can bring. He'll be a big help.

John Wall needs to look in the mirror and get serious. His play in the first half was horrendous. He better figure out that, no, he's not a "superstar" (as I was astonished to hear Buck call him in the pre-game!!), he's not a star, he's a guy with something to prove, and he needs to bear down and prove it. I'm sure we'll see much better play from him.

Beal looked tentative when he got the ball; he didn't have a first move ready for the level of coverage he was getting. He'll look at video and come out strong on Friday.

Ariza -- wow. He really does have a *strong* game.

Maynor looked a little more solid than in pre-season. Still, I don't see the upgrade over Price -- who should have been rewarded IMO for the good-ish season he had w/ us.

Yup. Bad teams always play well in their home opener. If you're a betting man, bet on the Wiz to beat the spread in their home opener.

Expect lots more homerstrionics <copywrite> from Buck. In the preseason games, he was calling several Wiz backups "great" players. Volume off may be the best way to watch the Wiz this season.

[mhd]

An awful lot of post-mortem analysis here; hey, we haven't died yet!

We lost to a very motivated team in its home opener; not the end of the world.

Gortat had 5 fouls and 3 TOs in 17 minutes -- that's a first game line and reflects only his limited practice time. The boards reflect what he can bring. He'll be a big help.

John Wall needs to look in the mirror and get serious. His play in the first half was horrendous. He better figure out that, no, he's not a "superstar" (as I was astonished to hear Buck call him in the pre-game!!), he's not a star, he's a guy with something to prove, and he needs to bear down and prove it. I'm sure we'll see much better play from him.

Beal looked tentative when he got the ball; he didn't have a first move ready for the level of coverage he was getting. He'll look at video and come out strong on Friday.

Ariza -- wow. He really does have a *strong* game.

Maynor looked a little more solid than in pre-season. Still, I don't see the upgrade over Price -- who should have been rewarded IMO for the good-ish season he had w/ us.

Yup. Bad teams always play well in their home opener. If you're a betting man, bet on the Wiz to beat the spread in their home opener.

Expect lots more homerstrionics <copywrite> from Buck. In the preseason games, he was calling several Wiz backups "great" players. Volume off may be the best way to watch the Wiz this season.

I love Buck & Phil, but I usually mute commentators when watching the Wiz. I'd prefer to focus on the action. Too bad we don't have any national TV games this year.

[nuposse04]

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

100% agree.

While Nene is out, a lineup of Gortat/Jan with Seraphin/Booker makes the most sense to me. I know Seraphin wasn't as efficient as I would hope for, but he still to me at least seemed to play more physical in the pre season, and actually started passing out of double teams.

One guy that needs to shoot more is Webster. I think they simply need to run more plays for him. He's probably the most efficient option off the bench. I understand being a "team guy" but when you're clearly a better shot then w/e the team is trotting out there with you, you should probably ask for a few more plays ran for you.

[Hidden Eye]

Wittmann should do this lineup imo

Nene is complaining about playing C and he doesn't seem healthy. Longterm if the Wizards make playoffs this season it's best to control his minutes so they can utilize him for postseason.

Wall
Beal
Ariza
Gortat
Seraphin

Maynor
Rice
Webster
Vesely
Nene

That 2nd unit would be good already 2 options to go to. Gortat surprised me for first game he was doing good.
Rice has a rough game needs some edges smoothed out.

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

One thing I did like from last night was the expression on the players faces after the game was over, they seemed genuinely pissed and had an expression of "we need to get things together." In the past I've seen them way too jovial after losses.

Overall in summarizing the game they just had way too many easy buckets in the first half. We need to tighten things up inside, and it would be apt to start Gortat to get that process moving. Beal was uncharacteristically off and Nene seemed, to put it nicely, out of it. I expect we come out guns blazing versus Philly but we need to take them serious as there is always a team the everyone expects to under perform starting the season and because of that they sneak up on teams and actually over perform (i.e. Charlotte early last year). This team just beat Miami, with James and company playing pretty well (albeit the early deficit and minus Wade), we need to take it to them early and not let them get their confidence going.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

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?

The Wizards would have been better off playing Vesely and Gortat, and relying on Seraphin; much more than they did with flat Nene, and too-small Trevor Booker.

Detroit's big men had it too easy.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

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?

Im sure Denver is still shocked by how easily it was for them to trade Nene in the first year of his ugly contract

Nene's health should have been a huge red flag for the Wizards.

There was very little likelihood Nene would be healthy for the long haul. He had been injured all the season he got his new contract, but that didn't stop the Wizards.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

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.

IMO they should consider it a harbinger of things to come, possibly more blessing than curse.

Nene's paid well. The Wizards are stuck.

Vesely didn't play game one, but he appears to have put in good work over the summer. Start Ariza, Vesely, and Gortat. Bring Seraphin and Webster in (and move Ariza to PF, Vesely to C if the game is close no matter what his individual stats are).

Play Glen Robinson, Jr. Make sure Webster gets at least 5-10 shots. If anything, ease Al Harrington in slowly, but ride Gortat.

Nene's not an iron man. Washington was able to trade Okafor and not Nene for a reason.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

One thing I did like from last night was the expression on the players faces after the game was over, they seemed genuinely pissed and had an expression of "we need to get things together." In the past I've seen them way too jovial after losses.

Overall in summarizing the game they just had way too many easy buckets in the first half. We need to tighten things up inside, and it would be apt to start Gortat to get that process moving. Beal was uncharacteristically off and Nene seemed, to put it nicely, out of it. I expect we come out guns blazing versus Philly but we need to take them serious as there is always a team the everyone expects to under perform starting the season and because of that they sneak up on teams and actually over perform (i.e. Charlotte early last year). This team just beat Miami, with James and company playing pretty well (albeit the early deficit and minus Wade), we need to take it to them early and not let them get their confidence going.

The refs ripped the Wizards when the score was 85-89. The team competed pretty hard and fairly well, IMO. They have many new players. Chemistry issues and who shoots are going to have to work themselves out.

I like this team's talent a bunch, despite my frequent protestations. I don't think the coach will maximize the talent, however. Guys like Booker need to be considered for their contract status. Instead of benching Vesely, it would have made a BUNCH more sense to utilize the taller front line game one. The players are going to expect to win now. Their resolve is going to go sour real fast if they lose and guys don't get to play (Rice, Vesely) or shoot the ball (Martell 1 shot, but Beal 18). I am very worried, however, the coaches have a stuck mindset about who's better and they don't use stats to help decide. Not just individual stats, team stats.

Also, the lineups need to be adjusted according to what the refs are giving and who the refs are letting play.