GT #14: Wiz vs Kings, 11/24, 6 PM

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

I fast forwarded through some chunks of the game so I don’t know if Brooks had used his challenge. But if he hadn’t, why wouldn’t he have challenged the hack of Thomas on the three point attempt?

[Ruzious]

Watch out for Skai Lab (as they say at NASA). He's extremely inconsistent but every now and then has big games. Don't be lazy getting by screens setting up Hield - don't give him open 3's. Not feeling good about IT guarding Corey Joseph (now listed as probable), though I'd feel worse about IT guarding Fox. As long as dulcer posts, we have a good shot to win this.

Skal Labissiere ? I think he’s in Portland now.

Lol, pardon my Ruzism. Thanks for the correction.

[Ruzious]

I fast forwarded through some chunks of the game so I don’t know if Brooks had used his challenge. But if he hadn’t, why wouldn’t he have challenged the hack of Thomas on the three point attempt?

I'll be honest - my initial reaction was IT moved his hand to create the contact after the shot. It's a fairly common trick around the NBA that usually works, but officials are catching on. Still, there shouldn't have been a wide foul shot differential in the game.

[Ruzious]

Huh? They aren’t even trying to score a lot today . This has been the best defensive performance so far

Isaiah Thomas is a -13, there’s your problem. His minutes put them in too much of a hole because whenever he comes in, that’s when the opposing guards get comfortable.

Going to have to disagree about IT being the only problem. Bryant refuses to contest shots at the hoop. Rui makes numerous defensive mistakes. And we have a lot of weak switches. Easy to point to IT being the problem, but those Boston teams were able to play good defense with him. Also, this team doesn't have Fox or Bagley. If this is the Wizards best defensive performance we are a disaster.

Rui barely played, so not sure what you're seeing. And imo Bryant wasn't bad defensively when paired with Smith
Thomas has a significantly worse +/- than the rest of the team , he's a-14 (in a 7 point loss) and no one else is worse than a -8.. in this case the numbers tell the full story

Rui was awful when he played, but he's a rookie who's going to have those ups and downs - and it certainly wasn't for lack of effort. I'd have let him play through those bad stretches. The organization is heavily invested in him - for good or for bad.

Bryant is simply not the defensive disaster that some want to paint him as - he's playing basically without a legit defensive PF and with a very mediocre all-around defense around him. He's 22 and will continue to improve.

[dckingsfan]

Holmes and Barnes just had really good games offensively and the Kings really worked at getting the ball out of Beal's hands. That was the difference, IMO. I watched the game once and fast forwarded through a second time... the only calls that were obviously missed (that resulted in foul calls or non-calls) that I saw were against Beal. One time where he should have drawn the foul and another on a layup that they missed. That and some non-calls where Beal was held.

Happy to be challenged on my analysis though...

[Illmatic12]

Read on Twitter

[payitforward]

Would have been nice to get a win last night in advance of what looks like quite a brutal road trip coming up.

[daSwami]

This is the best bench we've had since I've been a Wizards fan...

Agreed. Our starting five would make for one of the best benches in the league.

[prime1time]

Going to have to disagree about IT being the only problem. Bryant refuses to contest shots at the hoop. Rui makes numerous defensive mistakes. And we have a lot of weak switches. Easy to point to IT being the problem, but those Boston teams were able to play good defense with him. Also, this team doesn't have Fox or Bagley. If this is the Wizards best defensive performance we are a disaster.

Rui barely played, so not sure what you're seeing. And imo Bryant wasn't bad defensively when paired with Smith
Thomas has a significantly worse +/- than the rest of the team , he's a-14 (in a 7 point loss) and no one else is worse than a -8.. in this case the numbers tell the full story

Rui was awful when he played, but he's a rookie who's going to have those ups and downs - and it certainly wasn't for lack of effort. I'd have let him play through those bad stretches. The organization is heavily invested in him - for good or for bad.

Bryant is simply not the defensive disaster that some want to paint him as - he's playing basically without a legit defensive PF and with a very mediocre all-around defense around him. He's 22 and will continue to improve.

So here’s the thing about center defense. Either your good to great or I don’t care. There’s a place for teams with big men that aren’t disasters defensively, and it’s not the conference finals or the NBA championships. I’ve seen what the Wizards look like when Bryant is challenging layups and dunks at the rim. So that’s my standard. If you want to say he’s not a disaster fine. But I’ve played enough basketball to know that when a guy is gliding in for a layup you rotate over and contest it. There’s simply no excuse for letting the Kings basically have a layup line.

This talk about him being 22 and improving is silly. He needs to start doing that now. It’s not hard. Contest shots at the rim and do it consistently. You want to know what I want from Bryant. Look no further than what Richaun Holmes did all game. For added measure I’d love to see him barking at teammates for making defensive lapses, but I’ll give him a pass for that because he’s young. If I find the time I’ll post a video to show you what I’m talking about.

If I’m an opposing player who’s about to face the Wizards I’d be giddy with glee because I know that they routinely give up uncontested shots at the rim. Can’t win games that way.

[Ruzious]

Rui barely played, so not sure what you're seeing. And imo Bryant wasn't bad defensively when paired with Smith
Thomas has a significantly worse +/- than the rest of the team , he's a-14 (in a 7 point loss) and no one else is worse than a -8.. in this case the numbers tell the full story

Rui was awful when he played, but he's a rookie who's going to have those ups and downs - and it certainly wasn't for lack of effort. I'd have let him play through those bad stretches. The organization is heavily invested in him - for good or for bad.

Bryant is simply not the defensive disaster that some want to paint him as - he's playing basically without a legit defensive PF and with a very mediocre all-around defense around him. He's 22 and will continue to improve.

So here’s the thing about center defense. Either your good to great or I don’t care. There’s a place for teams with big men that aren’t disasters defensively, and it’s not the conference finals or the NBA championships. I’ve seen what the Wizards look like when Bryant is challenging layups and dunks at the rim. So that’s my standard. If you want to say he’s not a disaster fine. But I’ve played enough basketball to know that when a guy is gliding in for a layup you rotate over and contest it. There’s simply no excuse for letting the Kings basically have a layup line.

This talk about him being 22 and improving is silly. He needs to start doing that now. It’s not hard. Contest shots at the rim and do it consistently. You want to know what I want from Bryant. Look no further than what Richaun Holmes did all game. For added measure I’d love to see him barking at teammates for making defensive lapses, but I’ll give him a pass for that because he’s young. If I find the time I’ll post a video to show you what I’m talking about.

If I’m an opposing player who’s about to face the Wizards I’d be giddy with glee because I know that they routinely give up uncontested shots at the rim. Can’t win games that way.

I got one name for ya - Brook Lopez - regarded for most of his career as maybe the worst defensive center in the NBA. Yet Milwaukee had the highest ranking defense last season (I don't know if they ended up best, but they were ranked #1 for a good chunk of it). But they had a great PF that provided a 2nd big to help out. We have maybe the worst... defensive 4's in the NBA - as far as helping out inside. That's where the problem is up front defensively for the Wiz, imo. The saddest thing to watch is Rui going for every single pump fake when he has all of 1 blocked shot this season. He's got to trust his length and agility.

[Illmatic12]

Spoiler:

Rui barely played, so not sure what you're seeing. And imo Bryant wasn't bad defensively when paired with Smith
Thomas has a significantly worse +/- than the rest of the team , he's a-14 (in a 7 point loss) and no one else is worse than a -8.. in this case the numbers tell the full story

Rui was awful when he played, but he's a rookie who's going to have those ups and downs - and it certainly wasn't for lack of effort. I'd have let him play through those bad stretches. The organization is heavily invested in him - for good or for bad.

Bryant is simply not the defensive disaster that some want to paint him as - he's playing basically without a legit defensive PF and with a very mediocre all-around defense around him. He's 22 and will continue to improve.

So here’s the thing about center defense. Either your good to great or I don’t care. There’s a place for teams with big men that aren’t disasters defensively, and it’s not the conference finals or the NBA championships. I’ve seen what the Wizards look like when Bryant is challenging layups and dunks at the rim. So that’s my standard. If you want to say he’s not a disaster fine. But I’ve played enough basketball to know that when a guy is gliding in for a layup you rotate over and contest it. There’s simply no excuse for letting the Kings basically have a layup line.

This talk about him being 22 and improving is silly. He needs to start doing that now. It’s not hard. Contest shots at the rim and do it consistently. You want to know what I want from Bryant. Look no further than what Richaun Holmes did all game. For added measure I’d love to see him barking at teammates for making defensive lapses, but I’ll give him a pass for that because he’s young. If I find the time I’ll post a video to show you what I’m talking about.

If I’m an opposing player who’s about to face the Wizards I’d be giddy with glee because I know that they routinely give up uncontested shots at the rim. Can’t win games that way.

I can’t put ALL the onus to play defense on the center .. because I look at the defensive rankings and I see Denver has a top 3 defense with Jokic, Bucks and Celtics are top 5 with Brook Lopez and Daniel Theis, Indiana is top 10 with Sabonis starting at C (Turner out injured) , Clippers are top 10 with Zubac/Montrez Harrell getting their C minutes. Orlando Magic are #11 with Vucevic.

https://stats.nba.com/teams/defense/?sort=DEF_RATING&dir=-1


Your center doesn’t need to be some Rudy Gobert type beast in order to have a great defense. What all those teams have in common , is they have guards who cut off dribble penetration and wings/forwards who are active on help defense + crash the boards. This protects the center and makes their job easier . Mil doesn’t have Brook Lopez flying around hedging and trapping - they have Giannis, Bledsoe, Middleton etc to do that and all Brook has to do is just be a 7-footer basically, put his hands up and protect the paint (which btw, we tried with Gortat and he couldn’t do)


The Wizards do not have a single athletic help defender with length on their roster. This is the biggest area where the Porter/Oubre combo is missed. In 2018-19 , we were top 5 in deflections per game. This season we are bottom 5 in that same category:

https://stats.nba.com/teams/hustle/?sort=DEFLECTIONS&dir=1&Season=2018-19&SeasonType=Regular%20Season

This isn’t even to say we had a good defense last year, but at least we had guys with the potential and instincts to defend if they cared to do so. Right now it’s not effort but completely a personnel based issue. A lot of people say “bpg/spg aren’t a measure of defense” but if your team is bottom 5 in both, it’s probably not a good sign about the quality of your defenders. This is why in the 2020 draft, Sheppard needs to prioritize wing players who recorded a high block + steal rate in NCAA/int’l play - Isaac Okoro, Jaden McDaniels, Deni Advija .. I’ll continue to add names to the tally as I do more draft research

Another illuminating stat.. Thomas Bryant ranks #11 in contested shots per game. If you look at the players listed around him, this makes no sense:

https://stats.nba.com/players/hustle/?sort=CONTESTED_SHOTS_2PT&dir=1

Players like Turner, Gobert, Whiteside , Ibaka etc contest a lot of shots because that’s by design - their teammates know they are experienced shotblockers and thus funnel dribble penetration towards them. In Bryant’s case, it’s not by design but rather it’s our weak perimeter players like IT who are just allowing a red carpet to the rim and TB is being overwhelmed. He’s not Gobert or prime D12 who can anchor your backline singlehandedly, we need guys in front to protect him so the ball isn’t being driven straight into his chest every possession. If you put say, Eric Bledsoe and Robert Covington on this team at the PG and SF spots, those driving players would be cut off or at least slowed at the point of attack and TB would have time to slide his big feet over and react.

[Ruzious]

Wow, good post Ill.

[nate33]

Another illuminating stat.. Thomas Bryant ranks #11 in contested shots per game. If you look at the players listed around him, this makes no sense:

https://stats.nba.com/players/hustle/?sort=CONTESTED_SHOTS_2PT&dir=1

Players like Turner, Gobert, Whiteside , Ibaka etc contest a lot of shots because that’s by design - their teammates know they are experienced shotblockers and thus funnel dribble penetration towards them. In Bryant’s case, it’s not by design but rather it’s our weak perimeter players like IT who are just allowing a red carpet to the rim and TB is being overwhelmed. He’s not Gobert or prime D12 who can anchor your backline singlehandedly, we need guys in front to protect him so the ball isn’t being driven straight into his chest every possession. If you put say, Eric Bledsoe and Robert Covington on this team at the PG and SF spots, those driving players would be cut off or at least slowed at the point of attack and TB would have time to slide his big feet over and react.

You want to look at that stat on a per-minute basis.

Here is per 36 minutes after weeding out everyone who has played 200 total minutes or less:
https://stats.nba.com/players/hustle/?sort=CONTESTED_SHOTS_2PT&dir=1&Season=2019-20&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PerMode=Per36&CF=MIN*G*200

That list has Bryant ranked 19th. Interestingly, Wagner is 13th. It's also noteworthy that the Lopez brothers from Milwaukee are ranked #1 and #2, and Whiteside and Labissiere, both from Portland, rank 4th and 5th. Defensive scheme obviously plays a major role.

What's more illuminating is DFG%. Here's a screen of centers who defend at least 8 FGA's a game, sorted by DFG%.
https://stats.nba.com/players/defense-dash-2pt/?sort=FG2_PCT&dir=-1&CF=GP*G*6:FG2A*G*8&Season=2019-20&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PlayerPosition=C

Of the 36 centers who make the cutoff, Bryant ranks 30th. And the bottom of the list is a who's who of bad defensive centers: Kevin Love, Cody Zeller, Lauri Markkanen, Frank Kamisky. Adams, who has definitely lost a step is there as well, as is, surprisingly, Myles Turner.

I couldn't help but notice that Moritz Wagner ranks 6th.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Spoiler:

Rui was awful when he played, but he's a rookie who's going to have those ups and downs - and it certainly wasn't for lack of effort. I'd have let him play through those bad stretches. The organization is heavily invested in him - for good or for bad.

Bryant is simply not the defensive disaster that some want to paint him as - he's playing basically without a legit defensive PF and with a very mediocre all-around defense around him. He's 22 and will continue to improve.

So here’s the thing about center defense. Either your good to great or I don’t care. There’s a place for teams with big men that aren’t disasters defensively, and it’s not the conference finals or the NBA championships. I’ve seen what the Wizards look like when Bryant is challenging layups and dunks at the rim. So that’s my standard. If you want to say he’s not a disaster fine. But I’ve played enough basketball to know that when a guy is gliding in for a layup you rotate over and contest it. There’s simply no excuse for letting the Kings basically have a layup line.

This talk about him being 22 and improving is silly. He needs to start doing that now. It’s not hard. Contest shots at the rim and do it consistently. You want to know what I want from Bryant. Look no further than what Richaun Holmes did all game. For added measure I’d love to see him barking at teammates for making defensive lapses, but I’ll give him a pass for that because he’s young. If I find the time I’ll post a video to show you what I’m talking about.

If I’m an opposing player who’s about to face the Wizards I’d be giddy with glee because I know that they routinely give up uncontested shots at the rim. Can’t win games that way.

I can’t put ALL the onus to play defense on the center .. because I look at the defensive rankings and I see Denver has a top 3 defense with Jokic, Bucks and Celtics are top 5 with Brook Lopez and Daniel Theis, Indiana is top 10 with Sabonis starting at C (Turner out injured) , Clippers are top 10 with Zubac/Montrez Harrell getting their C minutes. Orlando Magic are #11 with Vucevic.

https://stats.nba.com/teams/defense/?sort=DEF_RATING&dir=-1


Your center doesn’t need to be some Rudy Gobert type beast in order to have a great defense. What all those teams have in common , is they have guards who cut off dribble penetration and wings/forwards who are active on help defense + crash the boards. This protects the center and makes their job easier . Mil doesn’t have Brook Lopez flying around hedging and trapping - they have Giannis, Bledsoe, Middleton etc to do that and all Brook has to do is just be a 7-footer basically, put his hands up and protect the paint (which btw, we tried with Gortat and he couldn’t do)


The Wizards do not have a single athletic help defender with length on their roster. This is the biggest area where the Porter/Oubre combo is missed. In 2018-19 , we were top 5 in deflections per game. This season we are bottom 5 in that same category:

https://stats.nba.com/teams/hustle/?sort=DEFLECTIONS&dir=1&Season=2018-19&SeasonType=Regular%20Season

This isn’t even to say we had a good defense last year, but at least we had guys with the potential and instincts to defend if they cared to do so. Right now it’s not effort but completely a personnel based issue. A lot of people say “bpg/spg aren’t a measure of defense” but if your team is bottom 5 in both, it’s probably not a good sign about the quality of your defenders. This is why in the 2020 draft, Sheppard needs to prioritize wing players who recorded a high block + steal rate in NCAA/int’l play - Isaac Okoro, Jaden McDaniels, Deni Advija .. I’ll continue to add names to the tally as I do more draft research

Another illuminating stat.. Thomas Bryant ranks #11 in contested shots per game. If you look at the players listed around him, this makes no sense:

https://stats.nba.com/players/hustle/?sort=CONTESTED_SHOTS_2PT&dir=1

Players like Turner, Gobert, Whiteside , Ibaka etc contest a lot of shots because that’s by design - their teammates know they are experienced shotblockers and thus funnel dribble penetration towards them. In Bryant’s case, it’s not by design but rather it’s our weak perimeter players like IT who are just allowing a red carpet to the rim and TB is being overwhelmed. He’s not Gobert or prime D12 who can anchor your backline singlehandedly, we need guys in front to protect him so the ball isn’t being driven straight into his chest every possession. If you put say, Eric Bledsoe and Robert Covington on this team at the PG and SF spots, those driving players would be cut off or at least slowed at the point of attack and TB would have time to slide his big feet over and react.

I agree.

In the past, I before the draft I thought Paul Millsap was going to be a superior player in part because of his prodigious amount of blocks and steals, (in addition to the points and rebounds).

https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/paul-millsap-1.html

Generally speaking, only really good players average over 2 in both steals and blocks per 40.

I used that in the past to project Kenneth Faried and before him Danny Granger. If you look at the stats, they're "stuffed" as Dickie V was fond of saying.

The Wizards don't need to worry about drafting players like this. Richaun Holmes types are in some cases languishing on the bench on other teams.