GT 75-Wiz @ LAC --10:30 PM

Chocolate City Jordanaire · Post #341 » by **Chocolate City Jordanaire** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 5:48 am

80sballboy wrote:Oh well. Good effort on offense. Shame we didn't play a lick of defense the first 3 quarters. Not going to blame the refs.

I had been in the hospital for a few days. tuned in on part of what I THOUGHT was a sure loss last game. That win was like playing with house money. It TOTALLY MINIMIZES THIS (EXPECTED) LOSS. LAC had just lost to Utah IIRC.

AFM · Post #342 » by **AFM** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 5:55 am

Chocolate City Jordanaire wrote:
80sballboy wrote:Oh well. Good effort on offense. Shame we didn't play a lick of defense the first 3 quarters. Not going to blame the refs.

I had been in the hospital for a few days. tuned in on part of what I THOUGHT was a sure loss last game. That win was like playing with house money. It TOTALLY MINIMIZES THIS (EXPECTED) LOSS. LAC had just lost to Utah IIRC.

You okay Ken? Praying for you.

benb331 · Post #343 » by **benb331** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 5:57 am

Sending you well-wishes too, CCJ. Hope all is well.

dangermouse · Post #344 » by **dangermouse** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 7:12 am

Difference makers:
#1 Referees
#2 Thots in the club looking to get themselves hammered by Marcin

queridiculo · Post #345 » by **queridiculo** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 11:02 am

The Wizards bigs never managed to put a body on Deandre Jordan and that was pretty much the difference in the game.

Perhaps it's time Brooks gives Gortat some time to think about his play on the bench, he's really struggling to be effective lately.

Apart from that, the Wizards defense continues to be a problem in general, you can't play like this in the playoffs and expect to get very far.

I also don't like that Oubre's minutes appear to be coming at the expense of Porters, and I'm a bit concerned about the shot distribution in general.

In the month of March Porter is taking less than 10 shots a game and he's had double digit shooting efforts in only 7 of 17 games played. Those numbers need to come up.

This was a great opportunity for the Wizards to put some distance between themselves and the Raptors, sadly Washington's defense to start games once again turned out to be a major issue.

queridiculo · Post #346 » by **queridiculo** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 11:04 am

deneem4 wrote:Morris and oubre should've came back in

Morris was ejected in the third quarter...

Post #347 » by **Rafael122** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 1:04 pm

Watching Gortat play has hurt my soul. It's like he's aged 5 years in the last 2 months, no lift.

Dark Faze · Post #348 » by **Dark Faze** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 1:07 pm

Might be time to put Gortat on the bench just to see how it works out

Meliorus · Post #349 » by **Meliorus** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 1:15 pm

Watching some of the highlights with the Clippers announcers, and they just kept harping on how bad our defense was. They wouldn't even give themselves enough credit, it would just be, "the Wizards were night-clubbing too much last night"

sfam · Post #350 » by **sfam** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 1:16 pm

As bad as we played the Clippers were trying their best to get us back in the game. Had we been able to hit an open 3 in the last 6 minutes, this might have had a different outcome.

The officials were almost as biased as the Cleveland refs, but if we play like that on D, it really doesn't matter.

sfam · Post #351 » by **sfam** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 1:17 pm

Meliorus wrote:Watching some of the highlights with the Clippers announcers, and they just kept harping on how bad our defense was. They wouldn't even give themselves enough credit, it would just be, "the Wizards were night-clubbing too much last night"

That's sort of what it looked like. Maybe Gortat should try dropping down to one or two chicks a night.

Illmatic12 · Post #352 » by **Illmatic12** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 2:34 pm

Rafael122 wrote:Watching Gortat play has hurt my soul. It's like he's aged 5 years in the last 2 months, no lift.

Was pretty obvious this was going to happen at some point.

We've had these discussions on the forum before with historical stats etc, and the track record of big men at his age continuing to produce consistently is not good (outside of the HOF players like Kareem, Malone etc)

And most of them don't decline gradually, they usually hit a sudden wall.

Illmatic12 · Post #353 » by **Illmatic12** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 2:41 pm

Man, Jason Smith is really a nice reserve player. Gotta give EG credit for that one.

Through no fault of his own, Smitty was incredibly unlucky in his NBA career. Prior to signing with the Wizards, he only played for a team above .500 ONCE in 9 years.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/smithja02.html

Ernie correctly guessed that he'd have more to offer on a winning team, and he was right (of course he took a similar gamble on Nicholson and lost). Just shows that environment and opportunity is everything. If Smith had been more fortunate to play for better teams, he'd probably have double the career earnings he has right now.

Post #354 » by **nate33** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 3:14 pm

Illmatic12 wrote:Man, Jason Smith is really a nice reserve player. Gotta give EG credit for that one.

Through no fault of his own, Smitty was incredibly unlucky in his NBA career. Prior to signing with the Wizards, he only played for a team above .500 ONCE in 9 years.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/smithja02.html

Ernie correctly guessed that he'd have more to offer on a winning team, and he was right (of course he took a similar gamble on Nicholson and lost). Just shows that environment and opportunity is everything. If Smith had been more fortunate to play for better teams, he'd probably have double the career earnings he has right now.

Agreed. I'm under no delusions that Smith is a full time, starting-caliber player, but he's a rock solid reserve. He can play PF or C; he's got the type of game that blends in seamlessly alongside good players; and he has a great attitude.

tontoz · Post #355 » by **tontoz** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 3:39 pm

The Wizards magic dust is working wonders for Smith's 3 pt shot. He is shooting 50% from 3 on the season on 2.2 attempts per 36 minutes, both career highs by a mile.

Mojo Amok · Post #356 » by **Mojo Amok** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 3:48 pm

On the post-trade deadline Becker and Broom podcast (WizKev & Fisher), they were actually complaining about Jason Smith's contract and saying they should only have given him one year. I could see the complaint, say, last December, but I was shocked to hear that perspective as of late February; one of the best value deals of the last offseason.

Illmatic12 · Post #357 » by **Illmatic12** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 4:13 pm

Mojo Amok wrote:On the post-trade deadline Becker and Broom podcast (WizKev & Fisher), they were actually complaining about Jason Smith's contract and saying they should only have given him one year. I could see the complaint, say, last December, but I was shocked to hear that perspective as of late February; one of the best value deals of the last offseason.

I like what those guys are doing as Wiz fans, but they do a lot of talking yet rarely admit when they're wrong.

tontoz · Post #358 » by **tontoz** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 4:23 pm

Smith's DRPM is actually positive now. His ORPM still sucks at -1.55 due to his horrible start to the season. If Morris went down I wouldn't be to worried about Smith being our starting 4. Hard to believe I am saying that given how bad he looked early in the season.

long suffrin' boulez fan · Post #359 » by **long suffrin' boulez fan** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 5:00 pm

Mojo Amok wrote:On the post-trade deadline Becker and Broom podcast (WizKev & Fisher), they were actually complaining about Jason Smith's contract and saying they should only have given him one year. I could see the complaint, say, last December, but I was shocked to hear that perspective as of late February; one of the best value deals of the last offseason.

That's because Nivek's "stuff" is completely blind to the very real (not fake) John Wall effect.

I'm looking at you Kevin.

I know you're lurking.

Sluggerface · Post #360 » by **Sluggerface** » Thu Mar 30, 2017 6:25 pm

queridiculo wrote:The Wizards bigs never managed to put a body on Deandre Jordan and that was pretty much the difference in the game.

Perhaps it's time Brooks gives Gortat some time to think about his play on the bench, he's really struggling to be effective lately.

Apart from that, the Wizards defense continues to be a problem in general, you can't play like this in the playoffs and expect to get very far.

I also don't like that Oubre's minutes appear to be coming at the expense of Porters, and I'm a bit concerned about the shot distribution in general.

In the month of March Porter is taking less than 10 shots a game and he's had double digit shooting efforts in only 7 of 17 games played. Those numbers need to come up.

This was a great opportunity for the Wizards to put some distance between themselves and the Raptors, sadly Washington's defense to start games once again turned out to be a major issue.

I do think we have been worse defensively (obv), but I don't think all of the defensive drop off is due to that. Washington had been giving up about 5 more points per 100 possessions post ASB, but a lot of that can be contributed to playing better teams, more games on the road, and general regression to the mean after posting one of the best runs in franchise history. The entire league has been leaking as well, prior to the break we had a defensive rating of around 105 (don't quote me on this, but i'm pretty sure). We were close to top 10 in defense. If we were to have held that mark, we'd be top 5 right now.

I think we'll stabilize during the playoffs.