[Juwan Howard gets roasted by several Andray Blatche head shakes.]

Monday night’s matchup between the Miami Heat and the Washington Wizards could have easily been dubbed the “something-has-to-give” game. The Heat front-court (Chris Bosh, Joel Anthony, Zydrunas Illgauskas, the now-injured Udonis Haslem, the recently-added Erick Dampier, and to a much less extent, Juwan Howard) have developed a reputation of being soft, and with good reason.

Emeka Okafor went for 26 points and 13 rebounds; Amir Johnson, who has been a major disappointment this year despite the 5-year, $34 million contract, went for 14 points; Zach Randolph had 21 points and 13 rebounds; Tyson Chandler had 14 points and 17 rebounds; and first prize in the “I-torched-the-Heat” contest went to Paul Millsap, who had 46 points and 19 rebounds in an overtime loss.  The point here is that dealing with semi-skilled to skilled big men is clearly not the strength of Miami.

On the flip side, the Washington Wizards are not exactly known for the play of their big men.  Andray Blatche is the only big averaging in double figures (16.6 points and 8.1 rebounds per game), although JaVale McGee is close (9.8 points and 8.7 rebounds per game).  Sixty-percent of the Wizards’ scoring comes from John Wall (18 points per game), Gilbert Arenas (18 points per game), the red-hot Nick Young (12 points per game), and Kirk Hinrich (10.9 per game).  When you throw in the fact that McGee came into the first match-up against Miami with a bad back, which meant more time for Hilton Armstrong (two points and three rebounds per game) and Kevin Seraphin (averaging two points and two rebounds in the five games he’s appeared in), it figured to be challenging game.

In the first quarter, Blatche played as if he was hell-bent on taking advantage of the scouting report. Fifteen seconds into the game, he hit a short jumper over Illgauskas, and even though he missed his next couple of shots, he did not stop attacking.  All of the patented moves that Blatche attempts with varying degrees of success (the behind-the-back move, the up and under, the hard drives off the dribble) were on display, and they seemed to be working.  Chris Bosh, Joel Anthony and Juwan Howard all tried to contain Blatche, but to no avail.  He had 10 points and two rebounds after one quarter of play.

Hilton Armstrong took one shot in the 6:54 he played in the first, and McGee did nothing but pick up a foul in the other 5:56.  The score at the end of the quarter was 24-21 in Miami’s favor.

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The Wizards played well against the Heat in Miami on Monday evening, they just didn’t have enough mustard to truly compete against superior talent. They lost 105-94 in a game that wasn’t exactly as close as the final score indicated, yet the final score also indicated the decent level at which a depleted Washington squad competed for the full 48 minutes. Hey at least the Wizards tried in tying a franchise worst 0-8 start on the road. Here’s a screen shot revue of the game … more to come.

“You’ve heard of the show ‘CSI: Miami’? How about ‘OMG: Miami?”
-Steve Buckhantz, pre-game

Buck and Phil Chenier were impassioned about their Wizards as usual on their first post-Thanksgiving road trip, and we ought to be thankful for that.

Nick Young, featuring a less-smiley game face.

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Young Kevin Seraphin and young Hamady N’Diaye. Bound by their knowledge of the French language and born abroad, these fresh faces couldn’t be having more fun chasing basketball dreams in the capital of the United States.

Happy-go-lucky guys they are, but hard workers and promising talent as well, especially the bruising Seraphin who you’ve seen more of on the court lately (just observe him set screens), and who you likely could see a fair bit of tonight against the Miami Heat as JaVale McGee’s availability is limited — according to Michael Lee, he’s available, but won’t start.

Rewind back to last Saturday night at the Verizon Center for a second. Into the locker room, before the game while the media is allowed to mingle in the team’s home sanctuary, Seraphin and N’Diaye came bounding through the threshold, literally arm and arm as they’ve been figuratively (Seraphin’s English is a work in progress; N’diaye, fluent in multiple languages, helps Seraphin via French).

Doing a jig-type dance, they were, bringing smiles to faces. My Flip-Cam ignited to capture them doing so when someone from the media contingent dedicated to covering Yi Jianlian requested that Seraphin and N’Diaye do what they called their new pre-game dance again. So now you can enjoy …

The Washington Wizards play the Miami Heat in Florida tonight, and the division rival will make a return trip to Washington on December 18th. Read below to win tickets to that game.

I’m relatively apathetic toward LeBron James. It’s not that I no longer don’t like him in a double negative manner. It’s just that after he further exposed to the national scene what Wizards followers knew the whole time, his villain status lost value in my eyes. LeBron is not really worth caring about, although one would most certainly rather him lose.

So, in honor of CyberMonday … and LeBron’s first trip to Washington, D.C. as a member of the Miami Heat coming up on Saturday, December 18th, Truth About It.net would like to send you to the game. And because you are likely shopping online today, why not get something for free (courtesy of the good folks at StubHub)?

>LeWho? The Miami Heat

>LeWhen? Saturday, December 18, 2010 – 7:00 pm

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Poor Vince Carter. Above, he can be seen shooting a basketball before a recent meeting between his team and the Washington Wizards in the District of Columbia. He didn’t play in said game against the Wizards, as Carter is wont to do — not play in games due to injury, that is.

Poor Vince Carter. He’s getting paid $17 million this year. He’s previously quit on a team from Canada according to some (Like A Bosh), he could keep his current team, the Orlando Magic, from winning a championship, and he seemed to be ever so slightly perturbed that the photographer taking these pictures, aka me, was taking these pictures.

“They’re supposed to be out here already?,” blabbered Carter to an assistant coach. I appeased the man by walking away upon detection of his annoyance at such a disturbance. Sorry Vince.

I guess it was just too much for Carter to stomach, as he is currently not exposed to opposing crowds aiming to thwart his jump shot attempts with noise. The soft clicking of photos being taken. From a distance. For a couple minutes. What a distraction. Poor Vince Carter. Read more »

No one likes moral victories. They aren’t supposed to happen in professional sports, at least not acknowledged. Moral victories? Those are for the college underdogs, the 15 or 16-seeds in the Big Dance.

But if you’re the Washington Wizards, fighting hard against the Orlando Magic to the point where the game was decided by a Gilbert Arenas missed runner in the paint (after being stuffed like turkeys on Thanksgiving night in Atlanta), you’ll take it as one to grow on.

“Well, we competed,” Flip Saunders said, almost reluctantly, after his team fell 100-99 in the waning seconds. “Had opportunities, I thought we could have very easily hung our heads when we got in the situation and got down 12, but fought back, had some great individual play.” The coach relented his answer before even being asked a question at his post-game press conference.

Wizards fans can only hope the players see the type of effort displayed against Orlando as more positive bricks in their project of rebuilding. Saunders had an excellent game plan and his players worked hard to implement it. But the little things made the difference on Saturday night, according to the Wizards’ coach.

“It’s just the little things,” Saunders noted. “We wanted to wrap [Dwight] Howard up, not let him get layups. We gave him too many layups.”

“I mean, he is a beast,” the coach later continued about the gargantuan Orlando center. “You know, you gotta grab him with both arms and try to hang on and hope that they call a foul and you don’t get hurt.”

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[Daniel Orton receives coaching instruction on his shot from Magic assistant Brendan Malone.]

Friday night after the Orlando Magic defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers, 111-100, Coach Stan Van Gundy was very upset about the brand of defense his team had played. The Magic led by as much as 18 points in the third quarter, but they allowed that lead to whittle away to eight points, and they never truly put the Cavs away despite the victory.   Here’s what Van Gundy had to say after that game:

“I saw very few good things defensively. We were terrible. Another 47-percent game. It’s the same old thing. With us right now, when the scoring is easy, we won’t guard, and that’s why we can’t put games away. We play one end of the floor at a time. So, we’re going to be in these challenges all the time.”

Last night against the Wizards, the Magic found themselves in a similar situation.  They jumped out to yet another big lead of 14 points, but in third quarter the Wizards shot 53-percent, and they even took the lead from the Magic.  If it weren’t for a big Dwight Howard putback toward the end, and a last second missed shot by Gilbert Arenas, the Magic could have easily lost the game.

Still, Van Gundy’s post-game comments (comments the media waited outside the locker room for over 30 minutes to hear I might add) were a lot more positive than they had been the previous night: Read more »

This is a Washington Wizards blog, and even though we have a segment entitled, “From The Other Side”, where we grab comments and interviews from the opposing locker room, we still try to make sure most of our content is Wizards-related.

However, there are instances when I get an audio or video clip that is too good to pass up regardless of whether it has anything to do with the Wizards or not.  Tonight happens to be one of those instances.

Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson and Orlando Magic coach Stan Van Gundy have been engaged in a war of words during this Thanksgiving week. First, Jackson hinted that if that Miami Heat continued to struggle a “Van Gundy situation” could emerge and current coach Erik Spoelstra could be fired.  Van Gundy shot right back by saying Jackson was “inappropriate and ignorant” about what really happened in Miami.

After a morning shootaround in Utah yesterday, Jackson offered up a bit of an apology:

“It was an off-handed remark about if things continue to go poorly for Miami, what might happen.  But, obviously Stan felt that he had to say something. Unfortunately he got defensive about it. I didn’t mean to do that. I should apologize because I do know about his situation.  Stan was going home to be with his family and that was his reason for leaving. I have no idea about the rest of it; why he came back out after retiring and being with his family. But, that’s his decision and fine.”

Prior to tonight’s Wizards/Magic game, Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel and David Aldridge of NBA TV asked Coach Van Gundy to respond to Phil Jackson’s words:

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No John Wall, no Vince Carter as the Wizards put their 5-2 record at home to the test against the best team they’ve seen yet in the friendly confines of the Verizon Center. But without those two, there are still plenty of story lines for the holiday hangover matchup on NBA TV — JaVale McGee and Andray Blatche vs. Dwight Howard, Gilbert Arenas versus Jameer Nelson, Kirk Hinrich versus the sure-to-get-booed J.J. Redick (or Arenas and Hinrich guarding the other way around), and the opening night blowout in Orlando hanging over Washington’s head. Question is, will this game be any good? Exactly.

Let’s go to the pre-game video where Flip Saunders and Andray Blatche discuss:

• Flip talks about his team in general, playing against good opponents home and away.
• Blatche talks about what the team is focused on with the opening night loss in Orlando and the Thanksgiving night loss in Atlanta in mind, and how this Wizards team approaches Dwight Howard’s effect on defense.
• Flip talks about the progression of Nick Young and his role coming off the bench (note: the newly acquired Alonzo Gee will be starting at the three spot with Wall out due to a bruised left knee — he joins Gilbert Arenas, Kirk Hinrich, Andray Blatche and JaVale McGee in the starting lineup).

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[Andray Blatche gets consoled by Wizards trainer Eric Waters after experiencing a malady early in third quarter against the Hawks. Trevor Booker would be subbed in for him around the 8-minute mark and Blatche would not see the court again on the night. Due to getting poked in the eyes? Perhaps. Due to other inefficiencies? Probable.]

“Maybe too much turkey,” Flip Saunders suggested to TNT’s Craig Sager during a sideline interview early in Atlanta’s 116-96 Thanksgiving night thrashing of the Washington Wizards on national television. The Washington Post’s Michael Lee pointed out (via Twitter) that the team ate their holiday meal together at an Atlanta hotel the day before the game on Wednesday.

But a one-day carryover of sleepiness resulting from Tryptophan or not, there aren’t too many excuses for a young team to come out lacking energy, toughness, aggression and any other immeasurable trait that’s also wholly noticeable. Inexperienced squads like the Wizards do tend to struggle with consistency, but such miniscule effort has happened way too many times in a season just 14 games old. Hopefully the Wizards enjoyed their holiday vacation and comradary together in the South, because they sure didn’t show up in Georgia to play basketball. They were never even in the game.

Notes and thoughts, randomly:

• Flip Saunders, it seems, has been pigeon-holed into playing the gimmicky three-guard lineup, because it includes some of his better, more veteran talent. But it’s not going to work against most teams.
• With big men behind those guards who have very low-level awareness — from harder concepts such as rotations, to easier tasks like simply having hands and limbs active in passing lanes — all an opponent needs to do is be patient enough to make the extra pass against the Wizards and they’re golden.
• Mike Prada opines on Bullets Forever: “… if the concern with pairing Wall and Arenas is that neither guy plays well without the ball, how does adding Hinrich to that mix help?  Saunders, so far, has gotten the Hinrich of 2007 rather than the Hinrich of 2009 this year.  He’s gotten the Hinrich that dribbles around looking to make plays rather than the one that sits in a corner and finishes plays.”
• In other words, in Saunders’ system Hinrich is closer to Earl Boykins.
• Rebounding just might be the toughest assignment in basketball. Sure, constantly chasing a wing guard around screens can leave a player with bruises. Jostling elbows in the paint with some of the largest athletes in the world ain’t an easy job either. But rebounding either produces or preserves possessions, and doing it well requires relentlessness, something the Wizards simply do not have.
• Well, let me check that for a second. JaVale McGee has really impressed lately with his hustle, his version of relentlessness. When he appears to be trying as hard as he has been (with stellar statistical results), it’s much easier to swallow his instances of cluelessness … while he’s young.
• Of course, when McGee wastes offensive possessions trying to get to the basket from 20 feet away by dribbling the ball once and then using that lengthy step of his to wrangle around a defender, contorting his body in ways that should be on display in a museum while throwing up some floating junk that’d even make a playground pickup game pause, you still want to pull out your hair and sit his ass on the bench, even though he’s really the only Wizards big man who can make a difference on both ends of the floor.
• And then there’s Andray Blatche. He’s certainly improved his basketball skills now that he’s in his sixth NBA season. And surely he’s acquired more basketball intelligence, making inherent to his thought process some of the game’s nuances. But c’mon folks, let’s be honest, this is the same exact Blatche he’s always exposed to us.
• On the Hawks’ first offensive possession, Blatche set a tone by casually letting an offensive board slip through his hands. I hesitate to denote anything past the area around Blatche’s waste as “soft” right now — to flat-out accuse a player of being soft these days requires some more due diligence – but Andray certainly doesn’t embrace contact like a big man should.  On offense he acts like a guard willing to do anything to keep a shot attempt from the lengthy arms of a much larger defender … then you realize that Blatche is a 7-footer and you wonder why he just can’t take the goddamn ball right to the rim in order to draw a foul. He’s a great free-throw shooter, you’d think he’d want to produce more undefended points.
• On defense, Blatche rarely offers much resistance in the paint. Sure, he can use acquired technique to hold his position, or his long arms to thrawt shot attempts, but most of the time, if an opponent works hard enough to get position on him down low, it’s over.
• The most damning vision from Blatche against the Hawks was his single rebound in 19 first half minutes. To his credit, he did snag three more rebounds over the first four minutes of the third quarter, but by then it seems that Flip Saunders had seen enough. With eight minutes remaining in the period, Blatche would be relegated to the bench for the rest of the night (believe that it was due to his eyes being poked if you must, he looked fine on the bench later in the game). When you’re getting your butt kicked as much as the Wizards were, you definitely don’t want to see a complacent, apathetic performance from one of your most talented players. And actually, I’m hesitant to call Blatche apathetic. It’s not that he doesn’t care, he just, perhaps, never knew how to work hard in the first place, and this team has never taught him. Or maybe they have and he’s just incapable, which would really bring into question why the Wizards signed him to an extension this past summer.
• Ted Leonsis doesn’t get embarrassed easily, he says. But you wonder at what point he becomes concerned to the point of action. It’s still much too early in the season to be making rash decisions. It’s not like the Wizards’ situation is as dire as Detroit’s.
• But clearly, someone needs to have a ‘come to Jesus’ with Blatche. Which, again, is kind of hard with that extending of his contract. Not sure how effective a parent would be if they gave their kid a cookie and a Snickers and then told them to sit in the corner to think about what they’ve done.
• Saunders is a great coach, and the circumstances unable to be controlled by him during his tenure in Washington have been rather miserable, but the coach also hasn’t exactly expanded or enhanced his resume while with the Wizards. Not that he’s incapable of turning it around, but he’s not off to the best start.
• Patience, patience, patience … rebuilding, rebuilding, rebuilding — valid aspects of what the Wizards are currently going through. But at some point, accountability must go hand-and-hand with those terms in order for a franchise that hasn’t been relevant in over 30 years to truly build.

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Before Tuesday night’s thrilling OT victory over the 76ers, I gathered up comments from JaVale McGee, Andray Blatche, Hilton Armstrong, Cartier Martin, Trevor Booker and Al Thornton about the Thanksgiving Holiday. I asked the players what they were thankful for, what food they would serve at dinner, about their fondest memories of the holiday growing up and got them to provide a short greeting to the fans.

Since the team is in Atlanta for a game against the Hawks tonight, they will eat a meal together Thursday afternoon. Thornton, who hails from Georgia, will be able to spend some time with his family and friends.

Enjoy the video and everyone have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Fact: No one composing this blog post knows where Christian Laettner is today. I’m sure someone knows, just not me. Here are a couple of pictures from when Laettner was last seen playing for the Washington, D.C. professional basketball franchise, with whom he appeared 206 games over three-plus seasons…

(disclaimer: most, some, or all of these pictures have come here courtesy of the Internet, a place(s) that you can get to by typing letters in the The Google.)

Here’s Laettner shooting a lay-up, except for the wrong way:

Here’s Laettner’s mug shot-esque photograph in a retro Washington Bullets uniform while he’s about to sneeze:

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[Looking south down 5th St. NW from Grant Circle]

The Wizards are 0-6 on the road so far on the season, but they are treating faithful fans to a 5-2 record at home. The last time the team started 0-6 away from home came in 2008-09, they won road game No. 7 against the New Jersey Nets on December 2, 2008. The worst before that came in 2006-07 when the Wizards started 0-8 on the road before beating the Knicks in New York on December 6 … and actually, that represents the worst road start in franchise history.

The 1961-62 Chicago Packers, technically the first season in franchise history, actually started their season 0-8 “away from home” — in that their seventh game of the season versus the New York Knicks took place in the neutral territory of Detroit, Michigan. The Packers won their eighth “true” road game, ninth “away from home” against those same Knicks in New York on November 21, 1961.

Of course, current team personnel doesn’t consider those two seasons in Chicago (’61-62 as the Packers and ’62-63 as the Zephyrs) as part of the franchise’s history that counts.  If they did, we’d be celebrating the franchise’s 50th season in existence this year. Instead, as a member of the Wizards’ PR team informed me a while ago, the franchise’s 50th anniversary will be celebrated two years from now, marking half a century since the franchise arrived in Baltimore, instead of when they actually started bouncing balls on courts.

So, with history potentially on the line, the Wizards have 10 road games left in 2010 — most are daunting, some not so much. Here’s the rundown: Read more »

The most dependable aspect of Nick Young’s game, perhaps, has become his 3-point shooting. No, he’s not knocking them down at a career-high rate (36.6-percent this season compared to 38-percent total in his first three NBA seasons; he shot 40.6-percent from deep last season), but he is taking them at a higher volume, so that certainly could take some getting used to for him. In his first threes seasons, Nick averaged 3.5 3PA per 36 minutes, making 1.3. This season he’s averaging 5.7 3PA per 36 minutes while making 2.1.

But the ultimate factor involving the higher-volume long-range Nick is that he’s shooting 48.6-percent from the field this season, a career-best by far. In NBA seasons 1-3 combined, Young shot 43.4-percent from the field. Nice improvement, I’d say.

The assists still aren’t there for him, he’s now averaging a career-worst 0.6 assists per 36 minutes (and that’s on top of an already horrendous career when it comes to passing). However, the turnovers aren’t there either. Up to this season, Young has averaged 1.97 turnovers per 36 minutes. This year he just has four turnovers in 258 total minutes (0.6 per 36 minutes). Wizards fans will take improvement from Young wherever they can get it, especially when he hits game winning bombs.

And to think, it all could have something to do with Nick’s lucky fox tail. Or not.

Nick Young talks about his first game winner:

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There was 3:31 left in the fourth quarter, the Philadelphia 76ers leading the Wizards 98-89, when Andre Iguodala threw a pass that was stolen by Kirk Hinrich.  The ball eventually found its way into John Wall’s hands, who looked up, found JaVale McGee, and hit him with a  perfect pass.  McGee, as he does so well, took the ball strong to the hole, and dunked it with authority on Elton Brand, who was late in his rotation.

Unfortunately for the Sixers, not only was Brand late rotating, but he was forced to foul, and foul hard — so hard in fact that McGee violently crashed to the ground and immediately grabbed his back in agony.  The referee wasted no time whistling Brand for a type two flagrant foul, which meant an automatic ejection from the game.  McGee, even as he was still on the ground in pain, managed to taunt the departing Sixer by waving goodbye to him as he left the court.

The flagrant served as a turning point in the game, as the Wizards outscored the Sixers 15-8 after that, and eventually won in overtime 116-114.  When asked if that was indeed the turning point, Sixers coach Doug Collins vehemently disagreed:

“Guys, with 8.5 seconds to go, we were shooting two free throws and they [the Wizards] had no timeouts.  So we can talk about it [Brand's flagarant foul] all we want, but we were still in a position to win the game, they had no timeouts.  At the end of the day, we stil l had a three point lead shooting two free throws and with 8.5 seconds to go.”

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