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

[nate33]

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.

Exactly. And I'd add, when they switched, we ended up isolating Wall on Hansbrough, which was another no-win situation for Toronto. It just seemed so easy when the floor was spread with a shooter at PF.

I'm not saying Nene isn't a good player. Heck, I'm one of Nene's biggest supporters. I'm just saying that this team really looks good with a stretch four - much better than people realize. Let's get a good one and move Nene to 3rd big. Nene will still get his 28 minutes a game and will undoubtedly help us win plenty of games.

[fishercob]

(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.

Keep in mind, the Wizards only shot 5-22 from three! If they're clicking, then it becomes a true pick your poison situation.

Start that stretch four, say Ilyasova, with GOrtat. Bring Nene in for Gortat and let him be the dive man against some backups, running pick and roll with Miller (and getting the ball our of Beal's hands and him behind the 3 point line). Nene should play 28-30 MPG and half of those should come with Gortat on the bench.

[cwb3]

73 fun filled pages for a regular season game thread!!!

[Hypnotizer]

Are the Wizards better without Nene?

Gortat has more space for p&r, but we lose powerful drives of Brazilian.
Hard to say. Record of wins and loses says we don't play good bb without Nene.

[Hypnotizer]

Still think Lowry is the best PG in the East? Wall is domianting him in every catagory and even his FG% is higher now. Lowry has been playing like asz lately but theyve still been winning. Doesnt make him better though

It may be Vasquez next season. How old is this guy? He's pure gold. Just compare him to EMaynor, ouch!!!

[GhostsOfGil]

Are the Wizards better without Nene?

Gortat has more space for p&r, but we lose powerful drives of Brazilian.
Hard to say. Record of wins and loses says we don't play good bb without Nene.

It was a joke.

[queridiculo]

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.

You can make that travel call, but refs generally swallow their whistles in those situations unless it's an egregious violation.

I think the bigger mistake was for Ariza not to foul Derozan as soon as he forced him baseline behind the backboard.

Washington had a foul to give, would have been a good one to take.

[mohammed10]

You can make that travel call, but refs generally swallow their whistles in those situations unless it's an egregious violation.

I think the bigger mistake was for Ariza not to foul Derozan as soon as he forced him baseline behind the backboard.

Washington had a foul to give, would have been a good one to take.

...like they should have done a few games back with Harden's flop on Ariza

[nate33]

Are the Wizards better without Nene?

Gortat has more space for p&r, but we lose powerful drives of Brazilian.
Hard to say. Record of wins and loses says we don't play good bb without Nene.

We are bad without Nene playing, but that's not the same thing as saying we are bad with Nene coming off the bench. With Nene coming off the bench, we are 6-6, with 5 of 6 losses coming to above .500 teams (the other loss was to Minnesota who was one game below .500 in the West).

[Hypnotizer]

(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.

Or Ryan Anderson. He and Gortat were best friends in Orlando.

[Hypnotizer]

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

I think it was on the defensive end.

[Hypnotizer]

Are the Wizards better without Nene?

Gortat has more space for p&r, but we lose powerful drives of Brazilian.
Hard to say. Record of wins and loses says we don't play good bb without Nene.

We are bad without Nene playing, but that's not the same thing as saying we are bad with Nene coming off the bench. With Nene coming off the bench, we are 6-6, with 5 of 6 losses coming to above .500 teams (the other loss was to Minnesota who was one game below .500 in the West).

Yes, and the question is: Should we start in playoffs with Nene as a starter or a bench player (to avoid next injury) IF these p&r plays will be still goldmine worthy? I mean TOR is really good def. team, but they were not prepered for such ammount of Wall-Gortat plays.

[Ruzious]

Notice there aren't many stretch 4's that are good defensive players. I'm not sure why, but I expect that will change over the years. It might be because most stretch 4's worked on increasing their range because they couldn't make it as regular 4's - and regular 4's were not encouraged to extend their range to 3 point land.

[Hypnotizer]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/MGortat/status/439475696524861441[/tweet]

[nuposse04]

(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.

This is why I was a big proponent of trying out Earl Cark. He has legit 4 size and *can* shoot, but it didn't manifest this season in CLE. He'd get much better looks next to Wall then Kyrie. Wall makes guys who have a decent skill, perform better IMO. Kind of beating a dead horse now though, since even if we did sign him after his 10 day contract is up we wouldn't be able to use him in the playoffs...(I think).

I can't think of any current worth while stretch 4s in the D-League :/ stretch 5s maybe....

[dobrojim]

73 fun filled pages for a regular season game thread!!!

I know. Are you freakin serious?

I was out of town. Couldn't watch (sounds like that happened to some other folks too).
Last report I saw on the net was that we were down 4 in the first OT. So happy to discover
we won this morning. But 73 pages? Come on man. How much of that is trolling and trash talk?

Awesome that we won. Sounds like John was The Man. That what we need. For him to assert
himself and the dominant player on the floor which is can well be in many of our games.
And to repeat what I've been saying for a while. when John is the dominant player in the
game, we should often have a very good chance of winning.

Oh, and did I mention that Verizon SUCKS for taking CSN+ out of the package that
I previously had. The giants in the telecom/cable deliver business really act like
they couldn't care less if they keep anyone as a customer. I seriously am going to
look at changing, especially if not having CSN+ available in my package at the same
price I've been paying (which is plenty) is a permanent new feature. I can see a lot
of future potential for this same $hit happening down the road if there isn't major
pushback.

So I gotta go to NBA.com and watch me some highlights.

[stevemcqueen1]

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.

Ross isn't Nene though. The good teams right now are healthy. None of them are playing without their second best player any more. It'll mean something if the Wizards finish the season on a tear without Nene.

I also think it's interesting that Wall has such great chemistry with pretty much everyone on the team except Nene. He's the one guy that Wall doesn't really seem to make better. Nene does his own thing. I honestly think we'll get more bang from our buck out of Nene by staggering his minutes with Wall and Gortat better. Give Nene and Beal more minutes with the second line because those two do have a pretty good two man game to go to, and space the floor out better for Wall and Gortat to do their work.

[pineappleheadindc]

Just a quick observation:

If you believe in karma, last night's Raptor loss came courtesy of the bad karma their RealGM board fanboys created by acting like douches on another team's board. Read the first few posts on this thread by some of the Wizard board's most thoughtful and loyal members. We were ready to lose, predicting a loss (except for dlts).

Then, like an infestation of locusts, here come the Toronto fan boys. All that b.s., so much that Nate had to create a battle thread -- that's a karma magnet, friends. And karma don't like fan boys invading other teams' boards and acting like the southern end of a northbound donkey. Ultimately, after two overtimes in the game, karma herself said "**** this ****" (direct quote). The rest is history.

Just so you know what happened.

[mohammed10]

Just a quick observation:

If you believe in karma, last night's Raptor loss came courtesy of the bad karma their RealGM board fanboys created by acting like douches on another team's board. Read the first few posts on this thread by some of the Wizard board's most thoughtful and loyal members. We were ready to lose, predicting a loss (except for dlts).

Then, like an infestation of locusts, here come the Toronto fan boys. All that b.s., so much that Nate had to create a battle thread -- that's a karma magnet, friends. And karma don't like fan boys invading other teams' boards and acting like the southern end of a northbound donkey. Ultimately, after two overtimes in the game, karma herself said "**** this ****" (direct quote). The rest is history.

Just so you know what happened.

I was really hoping this thread would make it to 100 pgs.

Oh well.

Interesting that after the loss, the Raptor douches scattered like roaches when the lights come on...

[Matty]

Just a quick observation:

If you believe in karma, last night's Raptor loss came courtesy of the bad karma their RealGM board fanboys created by acting like douches on another team's board. Read the first few posts on this thread by some of the Wizard board's most thoughtful and loyal members. We were ready to lose, predicting a loss (except for dlts).

Then, like an infestation of locusts, here come the Toronto fan boys. All that b.s., so much that Nate had to create a battle thread -- that's a karma magnet, friends. And karma don't like fan boys invading other teams' boards and acting like the southern end of a northbound donkey. Ultimately, after two overtimes in the game, karma herself said "**** this ****" (direct quote). The rest is history.

Just so you know what happened.

Raptor fans go to every single board, you guys just happen to be in our schedule 4 times this season. Come check out the Warriors board, I'm sure its already infested with us.