Scenes from sitting on the baseline at a Washington Wizards 85-83 win over the Boston Celtics. -KW

Every team needs a Cartier Martin. The Wizards already have their Cartier Martin, a basketball player who will always do anything needed/asked of him … even if it’s going after an errant ball in the vicinity of a Kevin Garnett hip check.

I believe this is Garnett’s version of a sh*t-eating grin. Convincing.

Cartier was unscathed, but they awarded the ball to Boston.

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Mustafa Shakur left the University of Arizona after four seasons less of a prospect than what he once was as a 2003 McDonald’s All-American, and thus, was passed over by the 2007 NBA Draft. He was signed by the Sacramento Kings that summer, but was released before ever playing. He spent some time in Europe and was again seriously looked at by the Oklahoma City Thunder last March, but never played. The New Orleans Hornets picked up Shakur last August, that didn’t pan out either.

Now he finds himself as the latest D-League call up of the Washington Wizards. The Philadelphia native arrived in D.C. from the Rio Grande Valley Vipers nearly four hours before the Wizards are set to play the Boston Celtics on Saturday night. With backup point guard Kirk Hinrich out due to issues with his elbow, and with John Wall unlikely to play a ton of minutes, being on the tail end of a back to back having battled Steve Nash on Friday night, along with emergency backup point guard Josh Howard being out for a couple more weeks, Shakur has a legit shot to play in his first ever NBA game.

The media briefly caught up with Shakur before tonight’s match-up against Boston to get his thoughts on the day, one where when his agent let him know about the call-up, he was sure that he was kidding.

From the Wizards’ perspective, you’ll hear sentiment such as, “We just turned into our old selves in the third quarter,” courtesy of Andray Blatche in the quote mix video above. He also said that too many players were trying to put things on their own shoulders and that there were no Kobe Bryants or Dwyane Wades in the locker room.

Regarding the offense, Rashard Lewis said in the first quarter the Wizards moved the ball side to side, but later in the game, they often utilized only half of the baseline to halfcourt plane.

John Wall cited lack of heart and fight … hero ball.

Nick Young said that they have to find ways to get people open, saying Grant Hill was talking to him during the game, telling him that the Suns were reading every play the Wizards called.

JaVale McGee walked out of the training room with just compression shorts and headphones on after the game, jamming to some tunes and asking a member of the media he knew for a box score.

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{Steve Nash all alone. - K. Weidie}

The last game was played in Milwaukee, and this one was played in the friendly confines of the Verizon Center.  The Bucks were missing three starters, and the Suns had a healthy roster at their disposal.  The Wizards are a putrid 0-20 on the road, and they went into last night’s contest with 12-8 home record–including four straight wins at home.  You get the point here, there were plenty of differences between last night’s game against Phoenix and Wednesday night’s game against Milwaukee.  Still, it played out exactly the same.

In both games, the Wizards played flawless first quarter basketball, only to see their hard work come unraveled in each quarter after that, leading to a double digit loss.

The Wizards shot 53-percent in the first quarter, and they were mainly led by Nick Young (11 points) and Andray Blatche (10 points).  John Wall did not do much damage scoring-wise (two points), but he managed to dish out a whopping nine assists, before he was subbed out for Kirk Hinrich with 3:49 left in the period.

Meanwhile the Suns only shot 34-percent in the first, they committed nine turnovers, and they lacked any sort of energy and rhythm.  During one stretch, when the scored was tied at 14, the Suns turned the ball over twice, and had a shot blocked by JaVale McGee the next time down the floor. The Wizards turned that into into 11 consecutive points (and five assists by Wall).  The score after one in Washington was 33-22.  The score after one quarter in Milwaukee was 27-19.

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John Wall asking to be fined by the Wizards’ coaching staff when he sulks or shows poor body language is a good thing. But is too big deal being made out of it?

Yes, at face value it’s refreshing to hear. In an NBA that’s getting younger, these are the situations that coaches like Flip Saunders have found themselves with … managing feelings and attitudes in addition to game plans. So when a player makes a request to be disciplined, ears perk up … because it’s new to us, but it doesn’t make the act any more valuable than someone who is able to keep themselves in check on their own.

Toward the end of the Wizards’ 18th game of the season, when the team was only 0-9 on the road (5-12 overall), was when I first noticed prevalent signs of Wall’s waning attitude and focus — in a tight home game against the Portland Trailblazers that the Wizards were trying to win no less. Here’s an excerpt:

With 33 seconds left, after Brandon Roy had scored to cut Washington’s lead to 79-74, coming out of a timeout, the Wizards were taking the ball side-out on their end. Instead of using an Andray Blatche screen to run toward Kirk Hinrich, who was taking the ball out of bounds, Wall listlessly scrambled away from Hinrich. The Wizards were forced to take a 20-second timeout. Flip Saunders chided Wall on his way to the bench, pointing toward the corner where he should have been.

The Wizards eventually inbounded the ball, and Blatche was sent to the line to shoot two free-throws. As the players lined up, Wall reluctantly guided his body in the other direction, frustrated. That’s when Flip asked his question, “Are you okay?”

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A Photoshop, links and commentary…

Who knows if it’s true … who cares? This isn’t a gossip site. All I know is that someone on Twitter directed me to some site called MediaTakeout that is relaying gossip about DeShawn Stevenson possibly being illegally married to two women at the same time. There’s really no “evidence” as the site advertises, aside from a 2003 marriage certificate to the supposed first wife, which neither proves he is still married to that woman nor married to another. Basically, all this is a bunch of noise (and the story looks to be from early December 2010, but you won’t be stopping me if you’ve already heard). So what do we do with noise sometimes? Why, we stuff it in the Photoshop Machine, ignore the fact that we have a hand in spreading the gossip (once it’s on the Internets, there’s free-reign captain), and come out with the below hypothetical.

Just what if, instead of Abraham Lincoln, Stevenson got a tattoo of Joseph Smith, Jr. on the front of his neck, founder of Mormonism and, of course, polygamist. It just might be a scenario meant for itself.

Another question worth posing … does this provide new nickname fodder for Stevenson? Big Love? Should we call him a regular Bill Pullman? These are the questions to which there are no known, or right answers. That’s life (for DeShawn Stevenson … “Mister 50 (percent)” … Hey! Double entendre!). Now go read some links.

Links.

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[Ed. Note: Ryan Gracia is currently a junior at George Mason University studying journalism and sports communication and has followed the Washington Wizards for years. On Wednesday against Milwaukee, he tracked the progress of Wizards rookie Kevin Seraphin and reports below. -Kyle W.]

Seraphin Makes Good With Little Time

by Ryan Gracia

With JaVale McGee picking up two fouls less than six minutes into the game against the Milwaukee Bucks Wednesday night, Flip Saunders turned to his second first-round pick in the 2010 draft to answer the call. It’s been quite a journey for 17th pick Kevin Seraphin in his first season in the NBA, but he’s made the most of his opportunities on the court – for the most part – despite erratic playing time.

As of late, one-time backup center Hilton Armstrong has been given a seat deeper down in the depth chart in favor of the younger Wizard, as shown by the difference in minutes played between the first eight games and the last eight games for each player: Read more »

{flickr/Tim Yates}

Back on November 24 of last year, my Truth About It colleague Kyle Weidie posed a question to site readers:  “Who Will Give The Washington Wizards Their First Road Win?” At the time, the Wizards were 0-6 away from home, but their slow start could easily be attributed to youth, a tough road schedule and the fact that Gilbert Arenas still wasn’t traded.

Two months and an Arenas trade later, the road loss count has ballooned from six to 20, and the cause cannot be easily explained away.  Depending on who you ask and when, blame can be placed on anyone from Ernie Grunfeld to Josh Howard’s knee.  Still, the fact remains that last night’s second half collapse in Milwaukee left the Wizards with an 0-20 road record to start the season — just nine away from the record held by the 1992-93 Dallas Mavericks of 29 consecutive away-from-home losses to start a season.

The Wizards’ next 10 road games look like this:

Mon. Jan. 24 – @New York

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It’s hard to pin-point exactly where the Wizards lost road game number 20 to the Milwaukee Bucks. They came out with a very strong first quarter … that was the easy part. The Bucks hit a couple jumpers and the Wizards didn’t score until three minutes had gone by in the game, but once they got going, they really got going. When all was said and done, John Wall had seven assists to zero turnovers and the Wizards had a 27-19 lead.

The second quarter … not so good, but the Wizards held it down. They went into the half with a 49-47 lead, whittled into by the old bones of Earl Boykins and Corey Maggette — those two combined for 23 points in the first half. Add in what Keyon Dooling offered and you have 32 points from an unlikely Milwaukee trio.

The Wizards started and ended the third quarter poorly. Usually coaches have a saying along the lines of beginning and ending all quarters well — maybe even Flip Saunders has cited that crafty philosophy before (I’m sure of it) — but these young Wizards are not yet in the position to do much less than the opposite at crucial points of the game away from home. The Wizards were out-scored 28-17 in the third and scored 13 of those points in a four-minute span from around the nine minute mark to the four minute mark of the period. Otherwise, not much doing.

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When Ted Leonsis said there would be an increased emphasis on player development in his list of 101 Things (action item No. 29), specifically involving the D-League, Wizards followers gave a collective ‘We’ll believe it when we see it.’ Not so much in doubt of Leonsis’ words, but more so because they’ve been conditioned under the tenure of team president Ernie Grunfeld that development and building for the future was paid more of a whimsical, cursory attention, as the franchise’s number one team builder always seemed instructed to focus on winning in the now.

Not that Grunfeld and his team did not pay attention to the scouting and the draft, but rather, for a myriad excuses one could presumably always find (see: the Wizards’ D-League affiliate, the Wizards, being in Bismarck, North Dakota and/or supplying said team with players to develop wouldn’t best jibe with the intricate offensive system that past coach Eddie Jordan was trying to instruct). Essentially, the D-League has never been worth Grunfeld’s time, warranted or not, aside from sending down the likes of Peter John Ramos or Andray Blatche for a spell in the earlier days (2005-06), and when the affiliate franchise was much closer in Roanoke, Virginia (the Dazzle), or during last season when a franchise in flux was interested in taking a gander at cheap labor while likely appeasing the desires of league higher-ups to use the development league for it’s true intent.

In any case, upon surely leaving out detail on the past unknown team development protocol that will only be known to organization insiders, ideals toward positive future development efforts changed when 2010 draft pick (No. 56 overall) Hamady N’Diaye was assigned to the Dakota Wizards on January 5. But such a path to the basketball enlightenment for the one called “H” almost didn’t happen. Unsigned in the days leading up to training camp, sentiment from the team indicated that they’d rather N’Diaye take his talents overseas for a year or two, something those on the player’s side didn’t seem amicable toward. Rather than lose his rights completely, the Wizards ended up extending a contract tender to N’Diaye and ultimately signed him to the team for training camp and into the season. Now, after a taste of life in the big leagues, just a taste, Hamady works on his very raw skills in the landscape of bus rides and meager per diems.

In steps Joey Whelan.

Whelan covers the D-League’s Dakota Wizards for KFYR-TV in Bismark. You can find him at his blog, Wizards Watch, as well as on Twitter, @JoeyWhelan. He has also contributed to multiple basketball sites on the world wide web. Now, Whelan is here with a guest piece for Truth About It.net, catching us up on the development of the uber-personable N’diaye on his road in the D-League. Enjoy. Read more »

A GIF, commentary and links …

[Consecutive wins for the Wizards? Al Thornton approves.]

Two wins in a row from the Wizards for the first time all season, albeit both at home where they are a much better team, is a sign of progress, especially when one of them is against a very strong Utah Jazz squad. But that first win came against the Toronto Raptors this past Saturday, a grind-it-out affair against another bad team. Ryan Gracia, a current junior at George Mason University studying journalism and sports communication, has followed the Wizards for years, and his family has also long held season tickets. Ryan attended Saturday’s game versus Toronto and below writes about a play that created a winning spark. And below Ryan’s write-up, some suggested links to read.

The Play That Created A Spark.

by Ryan Gracia

There was 5:56 left in the 38th game of the season Saturday night against the Raptors when brilliance was displayed before my very eyes and the eyes of those “announced” 14,651 fans surrounding me inside the Verizon Center. That brilliance was in fact demonstrated by our own Wizards team. Four players were involved to be exact: Nick Young, John Wall, Andray Blatche, and Rashard Lewis – in that order. Here’s how it went down: Read more »

Before the matinee against the Utah Jazz on Monday, several members of the media kinda/sorta gathered around Andray Blatche — who vies with Nick Young for biggest locker room personality now that Gilbert Arenas is gone. But it wasn’t really in a formal, recorded Q&A session sense … just a gathering to hear whatever was on Andray’s mind as he sat at his locker.

And since it was a day taken to reflect upon Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Blatche started talking about his own dreams — of a basketball nature — and it seemed like nonsense. Or at least the manner in which Dray’s dreams were conveyed seemed to be in an unintentional, thinking-out-loud regard … does anyone remember when Kelly Bundy used to do this on Married With Children?

Blatche first said he dreamt of a win against the Jazz, owners of one of the ten best records in the league heading into the game, which would also mean the Wizards’ first victory against a winning team on the season and their first two-game win streak. Second, Blatche said he dreamt of a road win. A media member quipped something about the auspiciousness of Blatche’s creative mind … chuckles and an air of ‘gotcha’ emerged from the gallery, along with Andray himself. Blatche then said that he woke up, went back to sleep, and later dreamt of the playoffs.

Clearly we’re just having fun here, right? … Just jokes amongst the people who have to put up with each other all year (I think). Blatche probably has dreams of various natures involving anything from the Shadow Room to the Chipotle Burrito Dash as well. What exactly are we seriously talking about here? Playoffs Jim Mora, the playoffs.

To make his first dream come true, Blatche started out strong on both ends of the floor against Utah. Just over a minute into the game, he moved his feet and played great help defense against Al Jefferson, got a steal and nailed a jumper on the other end. He hit his second bucket at the 8:52 mark, a jumper without even dribbling, with much thanks to a quick extra pass from Rashard Lewis. Not 40 seconds later Andray was scoring off a give-and-go, assist courtesy of JaVale McGee, of all people. Sure, Blatche got his pocket picked by Jefferson while dribbling too much at the 3:20 mark, but coming out with a 10 point, five rebound and two steal first quarter always makes such mistakes easier to swallow.

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{K. Weidie}

John Wall has shown signs that he’s starting to hit that dreaded rookie wall.  He’s been struggling to fight off injuries, and as a result, his aggressiveness, his explosiveness and his ability to defend opposing point guards has suffered. I’ve been watching basketball long enough to know that all rookies go through this type adversity at some point, let alone rookies who are assigned the arduous task of running a team and saving a franchise. With the Utah Jazz in town to face the Wizards on Martin Luther King afternoon, I knew I would have the opportunity to get some point guard perspective from three different members of that model franchise.

Jazz head coach Jerry Sloan instructed Hall of Fame point guard John Stockton for 15 seasons, and he’s coached All-Star Deron Williams for six. Williams is in the ‘best point guard in the league’ discussion along with Chris Paul, Derrick Rose and Rajon Rondo. His backup, Earl Watson, was coached by former Sonics great point guard Nate McMillan and mentored by a future Hall of Famer Gary Payton.

Among those three men, I was sure I could learn the traits of a good point guard, what Wall might be going through right now and get a good assessment of how he’s progressing almost halfway through the season.

Before the game, Sloan talked about how little the Wall/Williams match-up meant to him, and how important intelligence is to playing point guard:

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The Wizards looked primed to follow the script we have seem so many times this season: Take the early lead, suffer through foul trouble, and collapse late in the game. However, this wasn’t the case today. Maybe history was on the Wizards’ side, having now won five of their their last six Martin Luther King Day contests.

And while the Utah Jazz were looking to build on yet another winning streak (3), the Wizards had not won two consecutive games since April 4 and 6 of last year. But the Washington Wizards showed fire, heart, and discipline — characteristics that have long been absent from the Verizon Center.

In fact, and to my great surprise, the Wizards led for 46 minutes and 41 seconds. (The Jazz only found themselves ahead of the Wizards on three occasions, for a combined five points and 1:19 of game time.)

While there were plenty of highlights – including Andray Blatche’s chasedown block on Raja Bell, another classic John Wall to JaVale McGee alley-oop, and even a JaValevator tip slam late — there was one play that really made a world of difference today, and perhaps even for the rest of the season.

Why? Well, this win over Utah marks the first time all season that the Wizard have beaten a team with a winning record. Granted it was at home, but this is a nevertheless a monumental achievement for this young Wizards team. Next conquest: A road win.

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On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in 2007 Gilbert Arenas hit a game-winner walking away against the Utah Jazz in Washington… barely looked to see if it went in. Tough shot against a tough player in Deron Williams.

Four years later, the consistency of the Utah franchise and a Jerry Sloan-led team continues to carry an air of toughness wherever they go. The Wizards franchise remains in vastly different territory, with a fan base yearning for something they’ve never really known, that same toughness and consistency Utah always conveys.

“This is going to be a great test because this is by far the most physical team that we’ve faced,” said Wizards coach Flip Saunders before this afternoon’s game. “The other teams we’ve faced, Orlando and Miami, they’re good teams and they’re good defensive teams, but they don’t have the physicality of what a Utah has, and they do a lot because they have such great talent — a LeBron James and Dwyane Wade can take the game over — this team has a guy in Deron Williams who can take the game over, and [Al] Jefferson can do some things inside, but they’re so much better as a whole, such a great offensive execution team.”

As much as Sloan exhumes the toughness of his team, his second great point guard, Williams, carries that message while on the court.

“He’s tough, hard-nosed. Offensively, he knows how to run a team, he’s aggressive. He’s one of those guards who will sneak up behind you, set a good screen,” Wizards backup big man Hilton Armstrong told me before the game.

A point guard who a big man has to watch out for in setting screens? A differentiator in this era of great NBA point leaders.

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