ShareBullets… a run-down of commentary on recent Wizards subjects, and links…

Kobe on the Rebuild in Washington.

The below video is a bit old… it’s from the Los Angeles Lakers locker room after they lost to the Wizards in D.C. on March 7 (The Lakers said WHAT?); Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Derek Fisher speak in the video, sort of. Kobe tries his best to keep his answers to one word (he’s even asked by if his post-game media session in Washington is the most “Belichick” he’s ever been), Gasol says the loss was “embarrassing,” and Fisher, playing in his final loss as a Laker, says, “I’ve been around long enough to realize that you can’t allow yourself to be defined by the changing opinions of the critics or media personal that cover our game.”

The most pertinent question for Wizards fans, however, is when Kobe’s asked what needs to happen in Washington to get the franchise to the point of respectability. “Got to make the right decisions,” said Kobe plainly. “You got to make the right decisions from a management standpoint, the players you bring in here. That’s all it is, just making the right choices.” With calls for Ernie Grunfeld’s job reaching the generic sports column platform of the Washington Post, you have to wonder how the current team president’s track record of decision-making has been evaluated by current team ownership.

Nene Positivity.

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Nick Young passing (a career-high six assists), Kevin Seraphin putting in disciplined big man work (a career-high 14 points, a tied career-high of nine rebounds), Trevor Booker becoming an unmasked monster (a career-high 17 rebounds, eight offensive), and the big hero, Roger “How U” Mason catching fire (4-for-7 on 3-pointers, 3-for-6 in the fourth quarter)… Just what got into these Washington Wizards on Wednesday night in their 106-101 come-from-behind victory over the Los Angeles Lakers?

The perfect union of normally fractured Wizards efforts came together as one against the super powers of the Lakers, aided by Kobe Bryant jacking shots (which you can read about in a piece by yours truly on ESPN Daily Dime). Kobe went 1-for-1o in the fourth quarter, 3-for-18 in the second half, after scoring 20 first half points (14 during a blazing first quarter start in front of what seemed to be Lakers jerseys out-numbering Wizards jerseys 10-to-1 in the Verizon Center). Any John Wall? Presumed by me to be the Wizards’ only advantage, and chance, going into the game? He finished with a mere four points on 1-for-8 shooting with nine assists and five turnovers. Instead, the Wizards got 55 points off their bench. So whatever it was, after being down 20 points with about six minutes left in the third quarter, they’ll take it.

Randy Wittman after the game: “Hopefully this can go a long way for us in terms of that mentality of staying in the game, playing as hard as you can. You never know in an NBA game what’s going to happen, doesn’t matter who you’re playing.”

A turning point for a young team? A brief glimpse of unfulfilled potential? A rare alignment of stars allowing Washington to beat stars? Only time will reveal these answers… as it always does. The Wizards said WHAT? Exactly.

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The hawk-eyed Sherlock Holmes once said, “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.” While I can appreciate that bit of wisdom, the Wizards’ spit-roasting at the hands of the Golden State Warriors was no Boscombe Valley Mystery. The Wizards simply weren’t prepared to play — a truth so plain that even Mr. Lestrade wouldn’t miss it.

Precisely when the game was lost, however, is up for debate. I would point to the 12-2 run the Warriors made to end the first quarter, capped off by Monta Ellis’ 36-foot 3-pointer that ripped through the net at the buzzer. That 3-ball gave the Dubs a 41-24 lead, one they would never come close to surrendering.

But Randy Wittman, Flip Saunders’ stand-in, revealed that the game had been all but decided before tip off. In fact, his Wizards may have lost it in the locker room hours before the game.

“It was a vibe that I got from my team that didn’t sit well with me before we even hit the court tonight,” Wittman said in a postgame presser. “We didn’t look like we were ready to play, and that’s my job to have my team prepared to play.

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Wizards wins are starting to feel like buying a $5 lottery scratch ticket and winning a dollar back. Hey, a dollar! I won! Yea, but I invested five. No, this feeling doesn’t involve tanking for lottery balls, as getting upset with wins that hurt chances doesn’t matter to me. Although, not relishing in the loss doesn’t necessarily mean my apathy toward the Wizards winning has nothing to do with the fact that it might help. Essentially, I want winning when it matters. This season, it doesn’t. That said, close losses due to low-IQ basketball plays or blowouts due to the absence of hustle are disturbances. Emotion is involved.

Then comes the difference between me having a rooting interest in the Washington pro basketball franchise, versus covering the team, versus the players and personnel who are stopping through at this point in time. Beating the Cleveland Cavaliers 101-98 on Saturday night was good for them, especially the players. Locker rooms after losses can be fractured, and it goes past what the media sees. Some of us have been apart of this on various levels. Winning unites in more unspoken words than a picture. Good-natured locker room scenes provide much needed boosts to morale, on top of being a reward for the hard basketball work.

The Washington Wizards since the All-Star break, now with one win and two losses, have put on more consistent displays of good basketball, especially the sharing part. The 26 assists against Cleveland is tied for the second most this season (21.7 assist average in the last three games, up from 17.7 before the break). Shooters are finding open shots, percentages are up (eFG% in last three games at 0.502, was 0.456 pre-All-Star break). Plus, partially thanks to Roger Mason and Mo Evans, they are making more 3-pointers — 27 team 3-pointers (12 from Mason and Evans) in the past three games represents 15.3-percent of the season’s total. The Wizards still show bad habits, drop packs of cigarettes on the floor as Randy Wittman says, and are still susceptible to being “fragile,” as Flip Saunders used to say.

Where they will go with the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers, Portland Trail Blazers, at San Antonio Spurs and at Dallas Mavericks as the next five games on the schedule (followed by four more games of a six-game road trip), we will see. But at least on this Saturday night, the pendulum of locker room moods, personality, and clowning swung to the home side of the Verizon Center. The Wiz Kids felt a little better about themselves, and that’s a good thing. They needed it. Six game losing streaks get old. But the suits, they can always be new, just as long as they don’t smell like cigarette smoke.

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In going down 102-95 to an Orlando Magic team that appears to be suffering from mental fatigue due to uncertain cohesiveness, at least the Washington Wizards looked better at losing than they have in the past. Similar to the second half of the Milwaukee game, Randy Wittman opted to keep Nick Young and JaVale McGee benched in favor of a starting lineup of John Wall, Jordan Crawford, Chris Singleton, Trevor Booker and Kevin Seraphin. And while this unit struggled out of the gate, they did their jobs and stayed mostly within themselves.

Certainly there were mistakes. Furthermore, missed shots. All to be expected from young team making an earnest attempt while lacking size against a specimen like Dwight Howard and shot-makers who can be trusted to not disrupt the offense. Crawford caught fire with 14 points in the third quarter to go with four assists, giving him a hand in most of the Wizards’ 29 points scored in the period to Orlando’s 25. Once trailing by 17 points in the first half, Washington was down just 71-70 heading into the final 12 minutes. Unfortunately Crawford got cold in the fourth and went 0-for-6 from the field.

But John Wall picked up the slack. He scored 10 straight points for Washington after a timeout at the 10:27 mark of the last quarter when the Wizards were down 79-71. Wall capped his efforts with an assist to Mo Evans for a 3-pointer; it was a 13-4 run that tied the game at 83 with 6:56 left. But back-to-back threes by Orlando’s Jameer Nelson and Ryan Anderson after a Magic timeout at the 6:34 mark helped bury Washington. A long Nelson offensive rebound resulting in a Hedo Turkoglu 3-pointer that put the Magic up 100-91 with 1:32 left served as the dagger. But the point is that the Wizards fought, as a team, and with strong contributions from Booker, Singleton and a handful of others in addition to Wall and Crawford.

The Wizards SAID WHAT?

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This post is certainly a couple days late and definitely several dollars short amidst the pixels urgently begging for your attention as soon as it happens. But words last forever and video preserves them further. This is what Randy Wittman, Erik Spoelstra, Shane Battier, Chris Bosh, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Mo Evans and Nick Young said after they played on Friday, Feb. 10, 2012 in a 106-89 Miami Heat win over the Washington Wizards.

Who says….?

x “My challenge is always finding a way to be aggressive.”
x “Every team plays hard against us, they bring their ‘A’ game against us. We understand that.”
x “We’re always a day late and a dollar short.”
x “I think that’s what the fans came to see. They love to see their favorite players do amazing things, and they got a chance to see that on both sides … Hopefully everyone that came to the game, paid their hard-earned dollars for their ticket, and got their money worth tonight.”
x “I’m the best 3-point shooter in the world.”

[answers below video]

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The message of patience should not be lost from the big picture of this Washington Wizards rebuild. After all, John Wall is a nice piece the franchise is lucky to have. Still, this does not take away from smaller areas of function, or dysfunction, that create understandable impatience. After Miami’s win over Washington on Friday, both LeBron James and Dwayne Wade spoke with John Wall. In the locker rooms afterward the involved parties touched on what arose from that conversation.

“They take his leadership. Even though he’s a young guy, they take his leadership,” said LeBron James. Hopefully this is a concept Wall works on with leadership through body language, in addition to hustle.

Dwyane Wade encouraged Wall to learn from Sam Cassell. “All it takes is one player, and then another player, and then another player. D.C. is an unbelievable city, and obviously they have a young great player in John Wall,” Wade also said. “There’s some other pieces they can build on. So it’s just about being patient, it’s about getting the right opportunity, the right pieces, and it could change around,” said Wade, highlighting the fact that the Wizards franchise could suddenly have great potential fall in place just like it did recently for the Los Angeles Clippers.

Veteran Shane Battier might’ve put it most succinctly, “Take every advantage now of learning, and keep the young core of this team positive. Nothing wrecks a team quicker than bad attitudes.” And presumably the team is working on that as well.

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Look, it’s not *all* about Jeremy Lin, I just wanted to get his name in the post title via #LinsanityPixels. But the video below does feature the Washington Wizards (Randy Wittman, John Wall, Trevor Booker and Mo Evans), along with Lin, talking after Wednesday’s Wizards-Knicks game. These are the things you need to know:

• Randy Wittman doesn’t need to be reminded of the exact number of free-throws the Knicks took in the third quarter, he knows it was a lot.
• Mo Evans mentions sharks.
• Various parties talk about the pick-and-roll: Booker, Wall and Lin.
• Evans says he spoke with John Wall about how what Jeremy Lin and the Knicks did to the Wizards is actually encouraging because they can use John in the same way.
• Wall responds to a query on if his teammates left him high-and-dry on that Jeremy Lin dunk.
• Wittman gets to a breaking-point with the #Linsanity.
• And… an awkward question about Tim Tebow.

The Wizards Said WHAT? Yes they did, it’s all there.

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Don’t let the Washington Wizards fool you on occasion, they are still a highly dysfunctional team. But they are our Wizards, and we wouldn’t have it any other way, right? There are signs of improvement… kind of like running Anacostia River water through a colander. You’re definitely going to filter out a boot, perhaps a used condom or two. No, the water isn’t now drinkable, still very tainted – Washington needs several Brita filters on their roster — but hey, progress.

In Washington’s 111-108 overtime win over the Toronto Raptors on Monday, the starting backcourt of John Wall and Nick Young set the tone — Wall with aggressive drives to the basket, and Young with his excellent ability to make rhythm shots that the offensive system provides for him. The duo combined for 60 points (31 from Wall, 29 from Young). Of course, as he’s apt to do, Young regressed over the course of the game. His points and field goals per quarter: 1st (11 pts, 4-7 FGs); 2nd (7 pts, 3-5 FGs); 3rd (5 pts, 2-6 FGs); 4th (4 pts, 0-1 FGs); OT (3 pts, 0-1 FGs). Toronto adjusted their defense to what Young was doing earlier in the game and he succumbed to it.

Afterward, Randy Wittman didn’t name names (he could’ve been talking about several of his players), but it was clear Young was the main target of his words.

“Do we have things to clean up? Absolutely,” said Wittman. “We still have to realize, when you’re a scorer in this league, and you are scoring, that the other team scouts just like we do. They’re going to get the ball out of your hands, and we have to be willing passers when that happens. That’s a compliment… that’s a compliment. They are doubling you for a reason, and now all we gotta do it make the simple plays,” continued the coach, speaking of how he decided to keep the ball in Wall’s hands toward the end of the game, heaping praise on his point guard for making a simple pass to Trevor Booker out of pick and roll action.

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The Washington Wizards are a mess. They can team worse than they are, but the only one is the Charlotte Bobcats. They’ve, in brief times, competed against good teams, but always lose. They’ve given the Oklahoma City Thunder an anomaly to everyone’s surprise. They’ve gotten demoralized by teams very good, good, and mediocre, the LA Clippers working to migrate from good to very good status in their 107-81 blowout win over Randy Wittman’s team on Saturday night.

Washington has youth making lesson-learning mistakes, but they also have youngish mid-range veterans who continue to not “get it.” JaVale McGee, for instance, has more minutes of on-court development over his career than the likes of Ryan Anderson, Serge Ibaka and DeAndre Jordan. Yet those players, picked after McGee’s 18th position in the 2008 draft (21, 24 and 35 respectively), have developed into more indexed team intelligence for their franchises.

Jordan Crawford, age 23, is in the second year of a career that could go in a number of directions. Right now on a team like the Wizards, most of those don’t show a ton of promise, but there are glimmers. Nick Young, age 26, continues to show why he’s just another in a long line of capable NBA scorers who can’t do much else. In his fifth NBA season, he helps his team embody this quote said by Wittman after the loss to the Clippers:

“You have to read the situation and what they’re doing and not just play the play that’s supposed to be… they take this away, we’ve gotta do that. I don’t think we did the second part of it. They took this away and we just went ahead and tried to do it anyway.”

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