Wizards at Hawks 7:30 02/19/14

[Higga]

We need to learn to close out games. We never seem to put teams away when up ~20. Those games should never be close. How do you let old man Elton Brand light you up? Still, we got a tough W on the road. so I'll take it. I guess Toronto is just a really bad matchup for us.

[dobrojim]

You Wittman apologists are the one's being delusional. For most of the season he's thrown the bench under the bus instead of actually trying to fix it. Playing your starters in a playoff rotation is all well and good in all, except over the course of an entire season, it becomes so predictable and incredibly easy to exploit, and multiple coaches have done it all season.

You all want somebody in the starting 5 to step-up, but don't realize how hard that is to do when opposing teams can read your gameplan like an open book. Wittman even publicly said he hadn't gone over any offensive sets in TC in the middle of pre-season.

You really don't think a coaching change isn't going to make a visible difference? The way Randy game manages makes me want to puke.

Randy can't fix the bench since he doesn't make personnel decisions.

There are no secrets in the NBA. Every team in the league is predictable when they
are studied as thoroughly as they all study each other.

[dobrojim]

Booker is more consistent then nene...and actually rebounds...I'm ready to make him a starter and move nene

I dunno about being a starter but there are clearly games where he plays
effectively. ATL having no depth of bigs was an opening for Book. He's a better
matchup on Milsap than many of our other bigs.

[dobrojim]

I knew I'll get lambasted by the "I hope we suck so bad that EG and Wittman get canned" crowd (which I'm down with, the canning part) but the next three are against NO, @themistakebythelake, and ORL. I know Cleveland is red hot (which for some reason with this team that's not necessarily a bad thing) but if we can get the fire lit in these three games it be great going into the last game of the month @TOR. Hey they might whoop thy ass, but things could round together ending this month. At the very least the opportunity is there. (End I my we just own rant)

Im never with the losing talk. I think eyes are eyes and their is only so far Witt can go even if we play well. You need another coach to take us to the next level. Basically Im saying that even if we win at a good clip the rest of the year, I would still can him. Is anyone really going to cry over Witt? Chances are, the new coach could do atleast as good. Its not like Witt has a history or a pedigree where people would complain like we did him wrong and I seriously doubt another coach wont have us with a winning record next year so I say win alot of games and still can them. "IF YOU WANNA CAN THEIR ASS, THEN CAN IT! THEY ARE WHO WE KNOW THEY ARE"!!!!

I don't much care for the loser talk either

I think it's at least conceivable that even a reasonably strong finish doesn't save
Witt or EG. Maybe I'm not being realistic. A strong finish could actually strengthen
the argument for bring in even better talent in both mgmt and coaching.

[dobrojim]

We need to learn to close out games. We never seem to put teams away when up ~20. Those games should never be close. How do you let old man Elton Brand light you up? Still, we got a tough W on the road. so I'll take it. I guess Toronto is just a really bad matchup for us.

We're a .500 team so closing out is an inconsistent phenomenon.
That said, we won big/going away last night. Yeah it got tenuous
there for a while but we led in the game basically from wire to wire
and pulled away at the end. Good road win even if it was against a
depleted slumping team. It was the kind of game we routinely used
to lose. We've made progress. And there is still plenty of room for
more improvement. Both the critics and the ....strugging to come up
with the right word, IDK optimists(?) are correct. EG needed to be gone
long ago. We could use a better coach. But we're about to pass our
win total from last year with almost 2 months left to play.

google is not helping me much - maybe someone can answer this.
We are within reach of a winning road record. What is the best
away record in Washington team history?

edit to add - road wins since 1999-2000
7
15
14
8
16
15
15
18
6
11
3
9
7

[Nivek]

google is not helping me much - maybe someone can answer this.
We are within reach of a winning road record. What is the best
away record in Washington team history?

edit to add - road wins since 1999-2000
7
15
14
8
16
15
15
18
6
11
3
9
7

By winning percentage, the last time the Wizards were better on the road than this year's .481 (so far), they were actually the Bullets. It was 1981-82, and they went 21-20. In 1968-69, they went 24-15 on the road, for an away winning percentage of .615. They won 57 games that season and lost in the Eastern Conference semifinals to the Knicks, who lost to the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals, who went on to beat the Lakers for the title.

[Sonny Carson]

OKC would prefer Lowry over Westbrook? You're joking right?

Or are you considering contracts or what?

Simply from an on the court standpoint, Lowry is an efficient 3 point shooter and a better distributor than Westbrook. Moreso than anything, Durant would take more shots with Lowry in place. I was surprised to see that looking up the numbers that Westbrook has a 51.5% TS%. Still, the sample size is small given that Lowry hasn't had a season this good ever and it is a contract season- and for Westbrook it is even smaller since he has been injured. Lowry would have to do it for a longer time. Westbrook is the better talent. There is no doubt about that. He does need to improve his shot selection though.

That being said, I would still take Westbrook given that he has had a better career than Lowry and I wouldn't go off a small sample size, more postseason experience, and more likely to get respect from officials. I am worried about Westbrook's knee which he has had 3 knee surgeries in the past year.

You kind of made my point, this is a small sample size for Lowry. Wall, like Westbrook, is clearly a better talent than Lowry. And he was flat out the better player last season. But all of a sudden, Lowry has a resurgence in a contract year and we're putting him ahead of all these other players? It's not even a whole season thing for Lowry, he's really only been playing this well for 40 games or so (since the Gay trade). Wall has been playing at an All-Star level for at least a season's worth of games.

Lowry's TS% this year is 3% higher than any other year in his career. This is clearly an anomaly for him.

The Raptors are 3rd in the East this year and playing great on both sides of the ball. I get that all of their players are going to be inflated because of their team success. I get it. But let us acknowledge that this year is an anomaly for Lowry. If Wall was in an offensive system that actually suited his strengths (ie playing with more ballhandlers and slashers, rather than statues who just stand around on offense), his on-court impact would far exceed Lowry's.

Saying Lowry is better than Wall is like saying Trevor Ariza is better than Deng, because they have comparable stats this year and Ariza's team is doing better. In reality, Deng has proven to be a better player than Ariza over his career, but Trevor happens to be in a system that suits his strengths perfectly and he's having a career year.

http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/23 ... Ariza-Deal

[dorianwrite]

Good thing we played the Hawks last night, before they traded for Antwan Jamison...