Official Thread -- Wizards at Raptors (2/27/14)

[Soup's Uncle]

You guys got lucky, Raps lost the game rather than the Wizards winning it. Hopefully we see you in the 1st round, easy series for us.

Looo-hooo...zaaherrr.

[hands11]

69 pages?

Kyle Lowry is a fat pug

He is a pudgy little dude isn't he.

[fishercob]

Just got back from the game. Epic fun times were had. At least for me... not so much the 18,000 screaming Raptors fans. (Gotta give them credit, btw - the arena crowd was loud and responsive. They booed every call that went against them, cheered every good play, and just about exploded when Amir had that one windmill dunk)

Came away from the game impressed by Wall. He was slicing through the Raptors defense at-will. If anyone on the Wizards could hit one of the wide-open three point shots he orchestrated, the game would never have gone to overtime. He had too many sloppy turnovers, but wow, he was fun to watch in person.

DeRozan was also very impressive. He's really grown as a player, on offense and defense. I was especially impressed by his patience and control; several times he would drive, pump fake, pivot, and find space to get a quality shot off. When it wasn't there, he passed it back out. Somehow he managed to do major iso damage without ever feeling like a ball stopper.

On the not-so-impressed side of things, Singleton and Jonas both made me cringe every time they touched the ball. I know the box score looked decent for Chris but ye gods man, he was a trainwreck on offense. The only person I wanted touching the ball less was Al Harrington, who mysteriously managed two drives to the basket that actually looked pretty decent... it's possible he made a deal with the devil, giving up all of his (crappy) outside shooting powers for the ability to pull off a spin move once per game.

Jonas... LOL @JV. Dude got his stuff blocked three times by Gortat. By Marcin "No Lift" Gortat! And then he followed it up by nullifying Greivous' brilliant floater! Amazing, amazing meltdown. I was laughing my butt off while it happened, to my (raptor fan) buddy's chagrin.

Lastly, what happened to Webster? He was invisible out there. Didn't seem involved offensively or defensively. Made some weird rotations, bricked wide open shots, and seemed a half-step slower than last year. Makes me wonder if he's hurt again and just not talking about it.

Anyways, fun times, was cool seeing Wall be a rockstar. I may have broken up with the Wizards as a fan, but it's still fun to hook up for a night out on the town once in a while.

Illuminaire, I'm glad you got to witness such and awesome road win in person. Very cool.

Several thoughts from last night's game in no particular order:

(1) I think the Raps took us lightly. It's human nature, but they were 3-0 against us and without Nene and I think they just assumed they'd win, if only subconsciously. 82 games is such a mental grind. It has to be so tough to go into every game knowing that if you're not prepared, you can lose. But that's the truth of the NBA.

(2) We're banged up. Other than the obvious Nene and Seraphin, Booker is clearly hurting (J Michael said as much) -- that's why I think he didn't play more -- and Martell is clearly not moving well. I don't know if it's a knee or ankle, but he's wearing a compression sleeve on one entire leg. It makes gutting out the W all the better b/c lthe game just turned into a war of attrition between the foul-outs and the exhaustion. You have to credit Gortat for his conditioning. I don't think many NBA centers would have lasted that long.

(3) This game is case and point as to why so many of us are clamoring for a stretch 4. Wall and Gortat are great in the pick and roll when they have the room to operate. If you replace Nene with a guy who stretches the floor you give Gortat more room and you suck in the defense for open shooters. I think Al Harrington (who had some nice moments) is too deficient in certain key areas to be that guy. But get me Ilyasova, Ryan Anderson, mayyyybe Patty Patterson (DC native and Wall buddy) if we could get the Tonronto version, etc. Let Nene make sweet music with Professor Miller with the second unit.

(4) Valanciunus doesn't look right. His pick and roll D was awful. He doesnt seem to be able to carry the weight he added.

(5) Bradley is lost. He took a terrible early-clock long two at the beginning of the second or third overtime, seemingly because he just doesn't know what else to do right now. I'm not worried about him per se. He'll learn and grow and that waved of drive was great. By the way, unbelievable recognition by the official that waved that off. That's an impossible call in real time.

(6) Professor Andre Miller, Ph. D. I may be in love. He didn't play more b/c Witt has him on a pitch count until he's in full condition. He and Wall are going to be effective together even though neither is a great shooter. Give them space and they'll bother teams a lot.

Great win, happy for the guys.

[AWIZZINGBULLET]

Phil Chenier must have been the only person to pick up on the DeRozan travel.

The Wizards bench missed it, Trevor Ariza missed it, the refs missed it...

I sure thought nothing of the move...it was like a trick out of David Blaine's Street Magic.

[sfam]

71 pages for a game thread? Wow. The game was insanely awesome to watch though. Wall's defense when everyone was dead tired was unreal good. We really stayed dedicated and fought.

Its pretty clear that its our defense that's going to win games like this. Bringing in Miller really gives the Wizards a chance to get rid of those horrid 3rd quarter deficits. The Wizards have to get more consistent, but games like this make you feel its actually possible.

I agree that Toronto probably didn't take us seriously this time. They have the better team, so if we meet in a 7 game series, they should be the favorites. Still, the Wizards are clearly making strides to become a mid-major of sorts - they aren't really scaring the contenders, but you do need to actually show up to beat them now.

[AWIZZINGBULLET]

You guys got lucky, Raps lost the game rather than the Wizards winning it. Hopefully we see you in the 1st round, easy series for us.

Funny you say that because that's precisely the way I felt about the Wizards in two of the three previous games against the Raptors that ended in losses.


I know what a tough match-up looks like. It ain't the Raptors. Been expressing that for a minute now.


Your team might win a few battles, but just as last night, the Wizards would ultimately win the war.

[nate33]

(3) This game is case and point as to why so many of us are clamoring for a stretch 4. Wall and Gortat are great in the pick and roll when they have the room to operate. If you replace Nene with a guy who stretches the floor you give Gortat more room and you suck in the defense for open shooters. I think Al Harrington (who had some nice moments) is too deficient in certain key areas to be that guy. But get me Ilyasova, Ryan Anderson, mayyyybe Patty Patterson (DC native and Wall buddy) if we could get the Tonronto version, etc. Let Nene make sweet music with Professor Miller with the second unit.

This times infinity.

It was NOT a coincidence that Gortat had his best game when Nene was out. It was NOT a coincidence that he had his best minutes when we went in a small ball configuration with Ariza at PF. This team is in such dire need of floor spacing at the 4 spot. I don't understand why EG and Wittman can't grasp this. We should play Ariza at the 4 in just about every game during crunch time. And EG should have traded for Ilyasova.

A guy like Ilyasova would make a HUGE difference here. People would think that Randy Wittman suddenly morphed into Jeff Hornacek. That's all Hornacek is doing. He spreads the floor with bigs that can shoot and then lets his two deadly guards go to work. It's not rocket science. We could do the same here.

[dlts20]

(3) This game is case and point as to why so many of us are clamoring for a stretch 4. Wall and Gortat are great in the pick and roll when they have the room to operate. If you replace Nene with a guy who stretches the floor you give Gortat more room and you suck in the defense for open shooters. I think Al Harrington (who had some nice moments) is too deficient in certain key areas to be that guy. But get me Ilyasova, Ryan Anderson, mayyyybe Patty Patterson (DC native and Wall buddy) if we could get the Tonronto version, etc. Let Nene make sweet music with Professor Miller with the second unit.

This times infinity.

It was NOT a coincidence that Gortat had his best game when Nene was out. It was NOT a coincidence that he had his best minutes when we went in a small ball configuration with Ariza at PF. This team is in such dire need of floor spacing at the 4 spot. I don't understand why EG and Wittman can't grasp this. We should play Ariza at the 4 in just about every game during crunch time. And EG should have traded for Ilyasova.

A guy like Ilyasova would make a HUGE difference here. People would think that Randy Wittman suddenly morphed into Jeff Hornacek. That's all Hornacek is doing. He spreads the floor with bigs that can shoot and then lets his two deadly guards go to work. It's not rocket science. We could do the same here.

we definitely need a stretch 4, however early in the year people were saying that Gortat looks terrible without Nene beside him

[manifested]

(3) This game is case and point as to why so many of us are clamoring for a stretch 4. Wall and Gortat are great in the pick and roll when they have the room to operate. If you replace Nene with a guy who stretches the floor you give Gortat more room and you suck in the defense for open shooters. I think Al Harrington (who had some nice moments) is too deficient in certain key areas to be that guy. But get me Ilyasova, Ryan Anderson, mayyyybe Patty Patterson (DC native and Wall buddy) if we could get the Tonronto version, etc. Let Nene make sweet music with Professor Miller with the second unit.

This times infinity.

It was NOT a coincidence that Gortat had his best game when Nene was out. It was NOT a coincidence that he had his best minutes when we went in a small ball configuration with Ariza at PF. This team is in such dire need of floor spacing at the 4 spot. I don't understand why EG and Wittman can't grasp this. We should play Ariza at the 4 in just about every game during crunch time. And EG should have traded for Ilyasova.

A guy like Ilyasova would make a HUGE difference here. People would think that Randy Wittman suddenly morphed into Jeff Hornacek. That's all Hornacek is doing. He spreads the floor with bigs that can shoot and then lets his two deadly guards go to work. It's not rocket science. We could do the same here.

You know, while I was watching the OTs, I kept thinking we should have brought in a sub for Beal. He looked completely gassed, was having a terrible game, just looked completely lost a few times.

But taking him out might have ruined the floor spacing. Temple, Porter, Harrington, Miller, Singleton, Booker don't shoot well enough. Raptors chose to respect the shooters and that opened the middle for Wall to go to work. Even though our usual snipers didn't have good games, they worked well enough as decoys.

[nate33]

we definitely need a stretch 4, however early in the year people were saying that Gortat looks terrible without Nene beside him

Not me. I was pushing for Nene to come off the bench and was happy when it finally happened. We had a short string of success when Nene was moved back to the starting lineup, but I was never in favor of it.

And the problem was that when we didn't start Nene, we started other non-shooters at PF. I'm talking about starting an actual stretch-four who can shoot 40% from 3-point range.

[manifested]

we definitely need a stretch 4, however early in the year people were saying that Gortat looks terrible without Nene beside him

But wasn't that because he was getting paired with Booker? That clogs the lane even more since Booker is worse than Nene at both passing and shooting.

Would be interesting to see shot maps for players in different lineups.

[GhostsOfGil]

While a stretch 4 would drastically help us, I'm not going to concede that Gortat plays better without Nene after one game. Our top starting lineup by +/- is Wall-Beal-Ariza-Nene-Gortat with a 19-10 record. When Booker was starting, Gortat (and the team) struggled on both ends. I understand the value of a guy like Illy (I was the biggest advocate of 3rd for Illy pre draft) but my point is that we shouldn't downplay Nenes impact on this team (and Gortat).

[verbal8]

we definitely need a stretch 4, however early in the year people were saying that Gortat looks terrible without Nene beside him

Not me. I was pushing for Nene to come off the bench and was happy when it finally happened. We had a short string of success when Nene was moved back to the starting lineup, but I was never in favor of it.

And the problem was that when we didn't start Nene, we started other non-shooters at PF. I'm talking about starting an actual stretch-four who can shoot 40% from 3-point range.

A starting line-up of Stretch-4/Gortat with Booker/Nene as back-ups would be great. If Gortat and Nene are on the floor together, it probably would be a good idea to do that with a 3 guard line-up to maintain spacing.

[nate33]

Our top starting lineup by +/- is Wall-Beal-Ariza-Nene-Gortat with a 19-10 record. When Booker was starting, Gortat (and the team) struggled on both ends.

The team went 6-6 with Nene coming off the bench. 5 losses were to above .500 teams. The 6th was to Minnesota who was 1 game under .500 in the West.

The other problem with starting Nene is that it forces Wittman to run the offense through Beal on the 2nd unit. Beal is struggling right now and I'd prefer that he play more minutes alongside Wall to help make the game easier for him.

[GhostsOfGil]

The other problem with starting Nene is that it forces Wittman to run the offense through Beal on the 2nd unit. Beal is struggling right now and I'd prefer that he play more minutes alongside Wall to help make the game easier for him.

I dont disagree with anything your saying. I just dont think downplaying Nene's impact is the way to go about proving the value of a stretch 4.

It was this line that I mainly was addressing:

It was NOT a coincidence that Gortat had his best game when Nene was out.

[Kanyewest]

I think the biggest difference was without Nene the Wizards were able to hit their free throws. Still have to think the Wizards are a better team defensively with Nene on the floor although they did a good job outrebounding the Raptors.

[stevemcqueen1]

I would love to pick up Patrick Patterson as a stretch 4.

The problem isn't so much Nene as it is Booker IMO. Nene is a good all around player. Booker takes too much off the table for what he brings, and I think the opportunity cost of not having a legit stretch 4 bites us there.

Replace Booker with a Patterson or Anderson or Ilyasova and you can do all sorts of interesting line up things.

This summer I'd let Ariza walk and try and sign Patterson.

[Ruzious]

The other problem with starting Nene is that it forces Wittman to run the offense through Beal on the 2nd unit. Beal is struggling right now and I'd prefer that he play more minutes alongside Wall to help make the game easier for him.

I dont disagree with anything your saying. I just dont think downplaying Nene's impact is the way to go about proving the value of a stretch 4.

It was this line that I mainly was addressing:

It was NOT a coincidence that Gortat had his best game when Nene was out.

Yup. I wouldn't draw any conclusions from beating a terrible Orlando team (playing without their leading scorer and having lost 16 straight road games) and then needing 3 OT's to beat a good - but not real good - Toronto team - playing most of the game without a starter. At this point in the season, most teams have a couple of injuries - so the Wiz are barely more handicapped in that area than most teams.

[Illuminaire]

(3) This game is case and point as to why so many of us are clamoring for a stretch 4. Wall and Gortat are great in the pick and roll when they have the room to operate. If you replace Nene with a guy who stretches the floor you give Gortat more room and you suck in the defense for open shooters. I think Al Harrington (who had some nice moments) is too deficient in certain key areas to be that guy. But get me Ilyasova, Ryan Anderson, mayyyybe Patty Patterson (DC native and Wall buddy) if we could get the Tonronto version, etc. Let Nene make sweet music with Professor Miller with the second unit.

This times infinity.

It was NOT a coincidence that Gortat had his best game when Nene was out. It was NOT a coincidence that he had his best minutes when we went in a small ball configuration with Ariza at PF. This team is in such dire need of floor spacing at the 4 spot. I don't understand why EG and Wittman can't grasp this. We should play Ariza at the 4 in just about every game during crunch time. And EG should have traded for Ilyasova.

A guy like Ilyasova would make a HUGE difference here. People would think that Randy Wittman suddenly morphed into Jeff Hornacek. That's all Hornacek is doing. He spreads the floor with bigs that can shoot and then lets his two deadly guards go to work. It's not rocket science. We could do the same here.

100%. Toronto is a decent defensive team, and the Wall/Gortat pick-and-roll was destroying them. They had no answer. If they showed too hard on Wall, he was getting the ball to Gortat for an easy layup. If they sagged back, Wall was using Gortat as a screen and getting to the basket himself. When teams can bring a third man into the lane it's possible to stop Wall.

When it's 2v2, everything changes. Wall seemed to figure that out sometime in the fourth quarter, and it was a thing of beauty to watch.

[gaspar]

Barkley was just showing us mad love again. Saying we should be the 3rd best team in the East and we have the most talent after the big 2

VIDEO for those who missed it.