Playoffs? Ya Kiddin me? Wizards vs. Bulls Game 1 Thread

[Brenice]

The Bulls didn't get exposed. They are who we thought they were. The Wizards got nation wide exposure. The NBA world is finding out who the Wizards are.

And here is a newsflash for the world, though not champions this year, the Wizards play well and hold their own against Western Conference teams too.

I wonder what all those ESPN analysts are thinking about their predictions.

[closg00]

No more excuses after what I saw from Lillard tonight. 31/9. Jeff Teague had like 26/7 the day before. Kyle Lowry put up some nice #s vs. the Nets.

At the end of the day....The team goes as far as Wall takes them. Tonight wasnt enough from him, but luckily Andre Miller saved the day. He's gotta step it up. Lillard played with a certain swagger/aggression that Wall simply lacked. I want to see him take over games and dominate. I believe he can do it.

Copy that

[Ruzious]

how many assists did we have against those 10 TOs? Other than Nene, seemed our
offense was pretty balanced.

21 assists, which can be improved upon.

Only thing I'd say going into game 2, is hope we don't have to ride Nene as hard, he played 35 minutes. I'd like to see him at the 27-28 min mark for game 2. Beal also played 42 minutes, I know the kid is young and this is the playoffs, but you don't want to be like thibs and run guys into the ground. If not webster, utilize Porter for 4-5 mins extra a game.

I'd also try Seraphin against these bulls, he has size that we need and can generally keep a guy in front of him on D.

Maybe they need to use Miller at the 2. Webster was terrible on defense. The only times Butler was effective offensively was when he was going against Webster. It was the same with Gibson going against Booker. Webster and Booker are the Wiz weak links on defense. I would use Otto as Ariza's prime backup.

[deneem4]

Wall got to the line so good early on but started moving away from it...we need that...that won us the game...even though that's opposite of how we play in the season....we need to get the bulls in foul trouble and mess up their rotations...
get porter in there when taj is playing...taj goes after all rebounds and loose balls with effectiveness from watching the sample size of porter he does the same...that goes a long away against these bulls..
Nene played great definitely surprised me, I want to see gortat a lil more active next game though along with beal...we gotta get into chicago cause they will come out harder next game...like beal said in the interview about Boston I think, make them want to quit

[dlts20]

No more excuses after what I saw from Lillard tonight. 31/9. Jeff Teague had like 26/7 the day before. Kyle Lowry put up some nice #s vs. the Nets.

At the end of the day....The team goes as far as Wall takes them. Tonight wasnt enough from him, but luckily Andre Miller saved the day. He's gotta step it up. Lillard played with a certain swagger/aggression that Wall simply lacked. I want to see him take over games and dominate. I believe he can do it.

I totally totally totally disagree with that. Ive seen Wall dominate Teeague this year and outplay Lillard. You have to look at the opponents. The West is a more wide open game. Wall would play well in nearly every single WC matchup because of the style. Wall would play well against BK, much better than Lowry did. Wall averages 35ppg at Tor this year with there style of play. Indy is struggling and most of all Teague is playing with Antic. That is a major stretch on the floor. Give Wall that and he looks totally different this series.

Wall is basically facing by far the worst team he could play in the whole league. There is no other D who could come close to stopping Wall as the Bulls could right now and he's playing with 2 low post bigs. I think Witt recognized that and tried to run the O through Nene equally as much. Would you be shocked if Wall played just ok this series and then went on to average 25ppg against Atl & Mia and do it against the West if we maded it? All 3 are far better matchups for Wall.

With that being said, the guy put up 20 & 8 on 50% shooting against the Bulls this year and this is his 1st gme. I think he will play better but dont just single out players like everyone is the same. If a team plays against the Laekers D or a more wide open opponent, he's going to look better stat wise. Wall still played alot better overall then people are giving him credit for. He ran the O well and got to the line while playing good overall Defefense and pulling down 6 boards

[cwb3]

Thank goodness for sat radio. Got to hear Dave and Glen's call. Got home in time to view the last 5 minutes! Sounded thru the radio that Wall and Beal attacked the basket early which made up for their poor shooting. Did not sound like the Wizards even attempted many 3's early on. Part Bulls D but also a good template for the series.

[Brenice]

No more excuses after what I saw from Lillard tonight. 31/9. Jeff Teague had like 26/7 the day before. Kyle Lowry put up some nice #s vs. the Nets.

At the end of the day....The team goes as far as Wall takes them. Tonight wasnt enough from him, but luckily Andre Miller saved the day. He's gotta step it up. Lillard played with a certain swagger/aggression that Wall simply lacked. I want to see him take over games and dominate. I believe he can do it.

I totally totally totally disagree with that. Ive seen Wall dominate Teeague this year and outplay Lillard. You have to look at the opponents. The West is a more wide open game. Wall would play well in nearly every single WC matchup because of the style. Wall would play well against BK, much better than Lowry did. Wall averages 35ppg at Tor this year with there style of play. Indy is struggling and most of all Teague is playing with Antic. That is a major stretch on the floor. Give Wall that and he looks totally different this series.

Wall is basically facing by far the worst team he could play in the whole league. There is no other D who could come close to stopping Wall as the Bulls could right now and he's playing with 2 low post bigs. I think Witt recognized that and tried to run the O through Nene equally as much. Would you be shocked if Wall played just ok this series and then went on to average 25ppg against Atl & Mia and do it against the West if we maded it? All 3 are far better matchups for Wall.

With that being said, the guy put up 20 & 8 on 50% shooting against the Bulls this year and this is his 1st gme. I think he will play better but dont just single out players like everyone is the same. If a team plays against the Laekers D or a more wide open opponent, he's going to look better stat wise. Wall still played alot better overall then people are giving him credit for. He ran the O well and got to the line while playing good overall Defefense and pulling down 6 boards

Agreed and the Bulls know they got to key on Wall. If they don't, the pace of the game would change and play against their strength.

[Illmatic21]

D Lillard has the easiest matchup possible, he's facing a Houston team that plays no defense in an up-and-down series. At least 3-4 players will average 20+ ppg in that series, book it

Imo Lillard would be a liability in a tight series like this where he's forced to create for others offensively, while also playing effective defense. Wall unsurprisingly struggled with his shot in his first game, but he was all over the floor on defense and just the threat of his speed was a gamechanger. If his shot starts falling he's going to be a devastating matchup for the Bulls and potentially Indy/Atlanta as well.


Wall destroyed teams like Houston, Portland, etc during the regular season. Let's be real, none of those teams have Thibs and would not gameplan for him as well as the Bulls have. All those skip passes, transition leakouts, etc would be open and he'd probably average 20/10

[Wizardspride]

Don't pay any attention to Sonny.

His definition of how well someone plays is almost solely predicated on how much they score.

[stevemcqueen1]

Maybe they need to use Miller at the 2. Webster was terrible on defense. The only times Butler was effective offensively was when he was going against Webster. It was the same with Gibson going against Booker. Webster and Booker are the Wiz weak links on defense. I would use Otto as Ariza's prime backup.

Yeah Webster and Booker were bad defensively, but on the whole, we played excellent defense IMO. So it didn't kill us. And the Bulls do make it easy on opposing defenses by playing so slow and taking forever to get into their sets. I really liked the tactic of pressing Hinrich and making sure there was only 17 seconds or so on the clock every time they got it past the time line.

I think Booker was nervous and jittery. It's weird to think of him as a young player, but it was his playoff debut. I hope he comes around and adjusts to the style of play soon.

As for going with Porter, you trust Webster's shooting a lot more than Porter's at this point. I'm a big Porter fan, but I don't know about using him a lot in the playoffs against this of all teams. They will confuse you and beat you up and give you tiny windows. And he got so little PT before the postseason started, it would be a wild card.

[Dark Faze]

If Wittman had been giving Otto a fair chance I think he'd be a rotation player by now. We haven't been able to count on Web for consistent play for a couple of months now.

[pancakes3]

We won on the road against a favored, higher seeded, tough, defensive team and people are talking about how Wall didn't play well enough! I like Wall as much as the next guy (more if the next guy is CCJ) but we all are WIZARDS fans, not WALL fans. As long as we get the W, who cares?

What's the stat? The team that wins game 1 of a 7 game series goes on to win 85% of the time? If that doesn't get you excited, I don't know what to say.

[dckingsfan]

Maybe another way to say it, I don't think we got a A game from Wall or the bench sans Prof. Miller.

It is going to be hard for Nene to match that same output - so we will need Wall to have a couple of "super" games.

That said, the reason we were losing in the first half - the Bulls were getting more shots due to our TOs and their offensive rebounds. In the second half, we cut down on our TOs and limited their offensive rebounds.

They still ended up with a shot advantage 81-74 but it stayed constant in the second half.

[dlts20]

I forgot to add that Teague has Milsap also. Thats 2 stretch bigs who can shoot 3's like a guard, bringing Hibbert & West way out the paint. On the contrast, a million bulls fans were mad yesterday that Noah was giving Nene so much room on the J. Why was he doing that? Because Thibbs 1st priority is to shut down the lane on Wall. He wants Kirk to hound him tight & hard with Noah sitting in the paint. The game plan is to take Wall away and play everyone else one on one. Thats why I thought it was smart by Witt to play through Nene until they adjust.

[dckingsfan]

If Wittman had been giving Otto a fair chance I think he'd be a rotation player by now. We haven't been able to count on Web for consistent play for a couple of months now.

I respectfully disagree... I think Otto's body was only now ready to play in the NBA (if it wasn't for the injury, I suspect you would be correct). I think he needs to go through a SL -> pre-season -> get his minutes and he will be fine. No need to embarrass him at this point.

[stevemcqueen1]

Thank goodness for sat radio. Got to hear Dave and Glen's call. Got home in time to view the last 5 minutes! Sounded thru the radio that Wall and Beal attacked the basket early which made up for their poor shooting. Did not sound like the Wizards even attempted many 3's early on. Part Bulls D but also a good template for the series.

That was the most surprising and encouraging thing about it. We didn't need the three ball to win. I've dumped on Wittman, but he absolutely deserves praise for the team's preparation. They had a really good game plan and it worked. The only thing that kept that game close was us making very basic mistakes: missing FTs and failing to box out and secure defensive rebounds.

I think it's super important to get our big men going because we beat Chicago at their own game when we do. It really doesn't matter if Wall and Beal don't get the same number of set plays called or have to give up shots. That's what the match up in the series dictates IMO.

If we keep winning the front court battle, we'll win the series. But we've got to keep it up on Tuesday, the Wizards have been inconsistent game to game. We can't feel like it's mission accomplished now that we got that road win and relax.

[pineappleheadindc]

The Bulls didn't get exposed. They are who we thought they were. The Wizards got nation wide exposure. The NBA world is finding out who the Wizards are.

And here is a newsflash for the world, though not champions this year, the Wizards play well and hold their own against Western Conference teams too.

I wonder what all those ESPN analysts are thinking about their predictions.

Good post.

I think many of those "analysts" who picked the Bulls were just engaged in lazy groupthink. To be honest:

1) The Wizards didn't play on TV a lot, so unless you're in the local area, you don't get to see them much.
2) The Bulls are a "brand".
3) The Wiz record sports some really nice wins this season, but is also really distorted by losses against lesser teams or in games which we held double-digit leads then just let the wheels fall off and lost.

I imagine that many of those "analysts" merely looked at the W-L record, thought "oh, the Wizards against the Bulls" as a measurement of brand, and annointed the Bulls as the winners.

Losing Rose and Deng in the same season is a blow that most teams would struggle with. It's just a testament to the Bulls style and culture that they so far have been able to withstand it. But, Bulls fans vehemently disagree with this but it's true -- the Wizards are more talented (in part because of the Bulls losing two key pieces). The "x" factor will be the Wizards' ability to maintain focus and make on-the-fly adjustments throughout the series.

[Rafael122]

The Bulls didn't get exposed. They are who we thought they were. The Wizards got nation wide exposure. The NBA world is finding out who the Wizards are.

And here is a newsflash for the world, though not champions this year, the Wizards play well and hold their own against Western Conference teams too.

I wonder what all those ESPN analysts are thinking about their predictions.

Good post.

I think many of those "analysts" who picked the Bulls were just engaged in lazy groupthink. To be honest:

1) The Wizards didn't play on TV a lot, so unless you're in the local area, you don't get to see them much.
2) The Bulls are a "brand".
3) The Wiz record sports some really nice wins this season, but is also really distorted by losses against lesser teams or in games which we held double-digit leads then just let the wheels fall off and lost.

I imagine that many of those "analysts" merely looked at the W-L record, thought "oh, the Wizards against the Bulls" as a measurement of brand, and annointed the Bulls as the winners.

Losing Rose and Deng in the same season is a blow that most teams would struggle with. It's just a testament to the Bulls style and culture that they so far have been able to withstand it. But, Bulls fans vehemently disagree with this but it's true -- the Wizards are more talented (in part because of the Bulls losing two key pieces). The "x" factor will be the Wizards' ability to maintain focus and make on-the-fly adjustments throughout the series.

Pine - i think most Bulls fans know the Wizards have more talent, but they obviously had...or have an edge in coaching, which is probably good enough for them to win a series. And reading their post-game thread, I get the sense most of them want this team to lose so they can focus on grabbing Melo in the offseason. For them it's a 'lost year', for us this means everything.

[dckingsfan]

I forgot to add that Teague has Milsap also. Thats 2 stretch bigs who can shoot 3's like a guard, bringing Hibbert & West way out the paint. On the contrast, a million bulls fans were mad yesterday that Noah was giving Nene so much room on the J. Why was he doing that? Because Thibbs 1st priority is to shut down the lane on Wall. He wants Kirk to hound him tight & hard with Noah sitting in the paint. The game plan is to take Wall away and play everyone else one on one. Thats why I thought it was smart by Witt to play through Nene until they adjust.

So basically Witt was using Nene as a stretch 4 which was spreading the floor... I would have to go back through the game, but I saw several chances for Wall to get to the hoop - he just didn't take them.

That isn't bashing Wall, just saying that he wasn't looking to attack as much as one would hope. In the half court sets I would guess he drove (and took the shot) only 20% of the time. He did attach (and score) a couple of times on TOs as I recall.

I would say that ratio is just about flipped for Teague in his game against Indiana. And I think Indiana's D is pretty good (not Chicago but still...)

I think this is something that posters that have watched the Wizards all year long have been frustrated with... good offensive PGs seem to be able to find there way inside at will - and we all hope John figures out that part of his game.

[tontoz]

The Bulls definitely looked shook after the comeback, like they didn't know what to do offensively. Their lack of a go to guy was pretty glaring in crunch time.