Post#98 » by payitforward » Mon Mar 1, 2021 5:57 pm
&, in a blatant violation of copyright:
‘I’m coming full speed at you’: Russell Westbrook is driving Wizards’ improved play
By Fred Katz Feb 27, 2021 15
Scott Brooks has a motto he’s relayed to Russell Westbrook.
“If you do something pretty good, do it occasionally,” he tells his point guard. “If you do something great, do it as much as you can.”
Consider this Brooks’ push to get Westbrook to — well, push. Lately, it’s starting to work. Westbrook is beginning to play like he did last season in Houston, and the Wizards are winning like they haven’t in years.
That is not hyperbole. It’s been years since the Wizards have caught fire.
They hadn’t won three in a row in more than two years or four in a row in three years until they accomplished both this month. They’ve now reeled off six of seven after a 6-17 start, and it’s not like they’re beating chumps. They just finished a four-game West Coast trip that included victories over the Nuggets, Trail Blazers and Lakers. The one loss came on the second half of a back-to-back against the Clippers, and it followed an overtime game. They’ve beaten the Nuggets at home, survived an emotional match in the John Wall return game and crushed the Celtics.
This kind of stuff doesn’t happen here.
There are lots of reasons for the uptick, but the Wizards hinge on Westbrook. He can play them out of games and he can win them. The Eastern Conference, grand owners of three teams with records above .500, has gone out of its way to give a 12-18 squad a chance at a legitimate playoff seed. Washington is only two games back of the play-in tournament and three back of owning homecourt advantage in the postseason. If the Wizards are going to hit their ceiling, they need Westbrook to hit his — and that’s exactly what’s happening.
A player who, save for an overpowering layup here or there, was settling for jumpers and showing little burst in transition is getting to the hoop at will for the first time in a year. And Westbrook, always willing to dive deep into the analytics, seems to know the reason why.
“Well, I can move and jump now,” he quipped. “So, there ya go.”
Simple as that.
Head to the rim, leap once you’re there, and you can be a star, too.
At the beginning of the season, when a left quad injury clearly hampered him, Westbrook couldn’t do that — at least, not consistently or against a team not named the Nets. He’s clearly quicker now, looking more like the player who erupted for the final month and a half of the pre-COVID season in Houston a year ago.
There’s no greater tell that he’s getting back to normal than how he played on the four-game road trip. Before the team left for the West Coast, only 26 percent of his shots were coming at the rim, well below league average, according to Cleaning the Glass. During the 3-1 swing, that figure was 55 percent, even higher than his career-best rate last season.
Healthy Westbrook is finally executing on Brooks’ advice: he’s doing something he does great all the time.
“He just does a great job of staying in attack mode. We’re better when he does that,” Bradley Beal said. “He’s just being able to put pressure on the rim, getting to the basket, letting our bigs be able to follow up for offensive tip-backs if that’s the case. So, we just need him always in that mode. He never stops.”
There are obvious benefits to the change. Dunks and layups are just a teensy bit easier than contested, pull-up jumpers. Getting into the lane is the first step to opening up teammates for spot-up 3-pointers. But there are the more subtle adjustments that come as Westbrook regains his athleticism. The Wizards, for example, can use him differently.
He’s not just getting to the rim because he’s grabbing defensive rebounds and racing there faster than anyone else. Those kinds of plays are about straight-line speed. But the acceleration wasn’t there in the early parts of the season, either. Now, he’s no longer running in mud and thus settling for jumpers once the Wizards get into their halfcourt sets.
He’s establishing a deep post position, which a younger version of himself didn’t prioritize nearly as much. Westbrook’s post-ups used to morph into 10-foot, fadeaway bankers. Now, he uses those moves to muscle to the rim, getting to the line more. He’s been particularly effective in “catch-and-go” instances. Beal can run pick-and-rolls on one side of the floor as Westbrook’s opponents sag off of as he waits on the wing. If two defenders chase Beal around the screen, he has the nine-time All-Star waiting to catch a pass and speed to the paint.
“His ability to catch from the slot and to get to the rim in a split second with one dribble, it’s intimidating,” Brooks said. “And he can also make good reads at that speed, so if you do cut him off or you do contest or get the drop-off pass (or) there’s a corner 3 shooter, it definitely helps our offense and it’s gonna continue to improve as we all see the plays develop much quicker.”
The move worked beautifully last season with James Harden and Westbrook. Now, it’s good for a few buckets a game or more coming from all over the court.
Westbrook says it’s easier for him to run those plays when defenders don’t get into his face.
“I’m coming full speed at you,” he said. “I can do what I want.”
And he has.
Even in moments when his box-score line looked funky, Westbrook played the optimal way during the road trip. He was only 5 of 13 at halftime of the Lakers game, for example, but it’s not like those attempts were jumpers early in the clock — all but two were in the paint. He left some layups on the rim in the first half, but if he kept attacking, the makes were going to come. He finished 13 of 25 with an outrageous proportion of his shots — 19, to be exact — coming in the paint.
So often, whether Westbrook plays well or not depends merely on the style he chooses to adopt. The Wizards know what they’re getting from Beal each night. They went into this year relying on Westbrook. If this is who he is, they don’t have to group themselves with the Cavaliers and Pistons of the world anymore.
The 3-pointers are mostly gone. He’s hoisted only 13 deep balls over his past seven games. He went through the first three games of the road trip taking only one a night. If his struggles were more about health than they were about age, then there’s optimism for the 32-year-old.
Of course, Westbrook is hardly the only reason for winning six of seven.
Brooks seems to mention often that Rui Hachimura has a new “best game ever.” He’s getting a little more handsy defensively and he’s growing more comfortable lifting for 3s. Hachimura made about five swing passes in the first quarter of Thursday’s win over the Nuggets that may have been unremarkable for anyone else but were a big deal for someone who the ball stopped with as a rookie. He’s learning how to irritate, which was not part of his game last season, and he’s made some plays in passing lanes — which, again, was a major struggle for him in the past.
A different role player seems to step up every night now. Sometimes, it’s Robin Lopez helping around the rim; others, it’s Raul Neto transforming into a gnat with a shooting touch. Davis Bertans has had a couple of flame-throwing performances. Garrison Mathews torpedoes into screens and is now receiving minutes.
And if there’s one issue for the Wizards, it’s how they guard screens. They need help there but are still playing their best defense in years. Again, that’s not an exaggeration. They’ve finished in the bottom four in points allowed per possession during each of the last two seasons and were second-to-last a few weeks ago. They’re 12th over this seven-game stretch.
They probably aren’t a 6-1 team, but they have also won as many times in the past 12 days as they did during the first almost two months of the season, which means they’re probably not a 6-17 one, either. As usual, the reality lies somewhere between. They still need defensive reinforcements wherever they can take them and 3-point shooting is a problem. If they continue to win, they’ll look for help in those areas.
Things are starting to turn their way. A trend familiar to those who have followed the Wizards for the last 40-something years popped up at the beginning of this season, as well: everything, even things completely out of their control, went wrong.
Opponents are now shooting worse on open 3s after a preposterously accurate stretch from December to the beginning of February. Even games that were supposed to be close, meanwhile, didn’t end up that way. Washington started 1-7 in games within five points with five-or-fewer minutes to go. The record since then has flipped to 7-1. You just know that if that final play against Denver — the one when every Nugget seemed to drift in the exact wrong direction — had occurred a month ago, then the basketball angels would have somehow carried Michael Porter Jr. to the rim for a game-tying dunk.
Things that once burned for the Wizards have shined for two straight weeks. And that includes Westbrook, the most important player on their roster.
“He’s always pushing the pace, looking to attack, looking to get guys involved, looking to make a play,” Beal said. “That’s always what we need.”
Breaking News: In a shocking development, Wizards owner Ted Leonsis has sold the NBA franchise to a consortium of participants in a discussion board devoted to the team on realgm.com. Details to follow....
