This won’t be any easier for you than it is for us.
What you are about to read is a hypothetical conversation between a representative of the player personnel management of the Washington Wizards and of the San Antonio Spurs. Those representatives could be Ernie Grunfeld and R.C. Burford, they could be anyone. Their roles are, however, played by Kyle Weidie of Truth About It.net and Tim Varner of TrueHoop Spurs blog 48 Minutes of Hell. Their conversation is about Andray Blatche.
MONDAY, JANUARY 16
[The Spurs are currently 9-3, having beaten the Phoenix Suns at home by 11 on Sunday; the Wizards are 1-11, having lost to the Philadelphia for the second time in a row on Saturday.]
The San Antonio Spurs came into the Verizon Center last night and thoroughly dominated the Washington Wizards 118-94. They shot 58-percent for the game, 52-percent from three-point land, only trailed for 22 seconds and had six players in double figures. They were also able to accomplish this with Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili combining for just 20 minutes and 12 points.
San Antonio’s victory was even more impressive considering that the night before, they were outplayed in Philadelphia, losing to the 76ers by shooting just 33-percent from the field, 17-percent from the three-point line, and by putting up just 25 points in the second half. As Gregg Popovich said during his pregame presser on Saturday, “We set offensive basketball back a decade.”
“Just one?,” asked another reporter.
“Maybe two …. you’re right, I’m being too kind. It was just ridiculous,” responded the coach. One night later, Popovich got his team to leave that ridiculousness behind. By halftime in Washington, they scored more points (72) than they had the previous night in Philadelphia (71 points total).
The Spurs not only own the league’s best overall record at 45-9, but they are also an NBA-best 20-7 on the road — and 5-2 through the first seven of their nine game “Rodeo Road Trip,” when there is a prolonged scheduling block in the AT&T Center due to the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo. That lies in sharp contrast to the Washington Wizards, who will be aiming for road victory number one against the lowly Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday. It doesn’t take a genius or fancy statistics to see the tremendous gap between the two teams.
Chris Quinn is a spritely-looking fellow, an every-man’s guy. He’s the type of NBA player you look at and say, ‘man, if that guy can make it, anyone can.’ Dude must work really, really hard. So this here post of pictures from the Wizards’ 118-94 loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday night is dedicated to the guy who couldn’t be picked out in a lineup of ball boys. Although Quinn didn’t exactly tear it up in his 20 minutes off the bench (6 points, 2-9 FGs, 2-4 3PT, 2 rebounds, 2 steals, 2 assists and 2 turnovers), his presence goes to show you that just about anyone can take part in embarrassing the Wizards. Here’s to the regular guy doing basketball things.
Quinn didn’t make this particular shot, but I still love it.
Quinn didn’t make this shot either, but again, the moxie.
The Wizards last faced the Spurs on December 26, 2010 in San Antonio, and they did so without Andray Blatche and JaVale McGee due to their club fight suspension. It was also John Wall’s first game back after missing six in a row and 12 out of 19. The Wizards were competitive, by their standards, but San Antonio moved the ball much better and won 94-80. Plus, Manu Ginobili got into Nick Young’s head. Washington last won in San Antonio on December 11, 1999.
The Wizards haven’t beaten San Antonio in Washington, D.C. since November 12, 2005 — 1,918 days ago. The were last in town on January 2, 2010, the day after the New York Posts’ article came out sensationalizing the Gilbert Arenas-Javaris Crittenton gun situation. San Antonio’s efficiency won 97-86, Tim Duncan led his team with 23 points on 16 shots, and Roger Mason Jr. added 20 points off the bench. Meanwhile, Gilbert Arenas (25 shots) and Caron Butler (21 shots) were in a pissing contest on offense and scored just 23 and 24 points on their respective attempts. After the game, Flip Saunders spoke about how he wanted Andray Blatche, who started the game with Arenas, Butler, Antawn Jamison and Brendan Haywood, to look for his offense closer to the basket. When asked, Blatche said he was just trying to stay out of Arenas’ way. Andray also took shots like this:
On February 21, 2009 the Spurs won at the Verizon Center 98-67, against thanks to Duncan, 19 points on 13 shots, and Roger Mason Jr., 25 points on 15 shots in a starting role. The rest can simply be explained by the Wizards’ starting a lineup of Mike James, Butler, Dominic McGuire, Jamison and Darius Songaila. Javaris Crittenton had a very Javaris Crittenton game with zero points on three missed shots to go with zero assists, zero turnovers, zero steals, three rebounds and three fouls in 18 minutes off the bench.
About Songaila, who was third on the Wizards with 15 points that game, Comcast’s Steve Buckhantz said: “He’s a smart guy, he knows how to play the game. If he had the body of a . . . Kwame Brown, he’d be an All-Star. And he makes the most with what he has.”
The Wizards played well enough without Andray Blatche and JaVale McGee (due to their one-game suspension for getting in a fight with each other at a D.C.-area club) to fall just outside the 13.5-point spread by which the Spurs were favored, losing 94-80 in San Antonio on Sunday evening.
Washington is now 0-14 on the road for the season and the team hasn’t won in San Antonio since December 11, 1999 — Rod Strickland, Mitch Richmond, Michael Smith, Juwan Howard and Ike Austin started against Avery Johnson, Mario Elie, Chucky Brown, Tim Duncan and David Robinson that night and beat them 99-89.
They never had a chance to win, but when upsets happen, you say, ‘Well, that’s why you play the game.’ But I guess that only really happens when teams play like they have a chance to win.
You’ll hear some analysis on the game say that the Spurs were a deeper, stronger team with more weapons. Sure, I’ll concede to that, but not as much as it’s hyped up to be. The answer is actually more simple than that simple analysis. The Spurs move the ball much better than the Wizards, to the tune of 27 assists to 18 for Washington. All the players Gregg Popovich plays buy into his system, they share the ball, and Spurs management has done a great job of providing Popovich with more players who relent to the team concept. The Wizards, on the other hand, seem to go after sheer talent in hopes that they can teach them to play like a team … and that can be a painstaking process, clearly.
Not sure if it was Manu Ginobili stock-piling points on him early, or if it was just him missing shots, but Nick Young had a retro game, for him. The early futility clearly had an early affect on Young’s psyche. He once called his buddy Andray “Sonic” and referred to himself as “Tails” … guess Tails couldn’t make it without his hedgehog friend in San Antonio. Young went 5-19 from the field with 10 points and couldn’t do much right. His night was epitomized by the .GIF above where, after Manu had already made three three-pointers, Nick just failed to pay attention to him in any regard … more concerned with the potential screen than about the space he’d given Ginobili all night.
Josh Howard shot 4-12 from the field and really looked to force some things on several offensive possessions. He also had a team-worst plus/minus of minus-12. Of course, here’s where the inaccuracy of plus/minus in it’s ability to give a true picture comes into play. Howard gave good energy and always found a way to get himself involved in plays. In the long run, Howard certainly deserves to eat into Al Thornton‘s minutes … he had six rebounds in 24 minutes to Thornton’s three rebounds in 28. Of course, with the current makeup of the team, Howard looks to get more time at the two.
Rashard Lewis had 21 points and went 4-8 from beyond the arc, but he needed 19 total shots to get there. Maybe that’s about the efficiency we can expect from him … and making those three pointers does actually make him more efficient (52.6 eFG% vs. the Spurs), especially when that’s an area where the team needs help. Lewis also got 12 rebounds and certainly seems more interested in boxing out than Blatche.
A lot of people will surely try to analyze John Wall’s return to the court, because it’s popular and brings eyeballs, I suppose, but really, this window — how Wall “looked” against the Spurs — is not really worth dissecting. His stat line off the bench: 19 minutes, four points, 2-9 FGs, no trips to the free-throw line, four assists, four turnovers, four fouls, a block and six rebounds. To me, Wall looked a bit gimpy in his knee at times, maybe it was stiff or whatever, but he did look almost as quick, noted by that sweet spin move he put on Manu before the half. About the only thing I take from Wall’s performance was that he finds ways to impact the game in other areas.
Kirk Hinrich had 15 points on 7-10 shooting with seven assists and four turnovers. He tried, earnestly. And for some weird reason, Hinrich’s admirable presence makes the Mike Miller and Randy Foye for the fifth pick trade seem even worse. Don’t ask why.
Prior to Saturday’s 97-86 loss to the San Antonio, Flip Saunders indicated that for the most part, Brendan Haywood would guard Tim Duncan straight up and they would run one-and-a-half men toward the Spurs center “at times.”
Duncan finished with an efficient 23 points (10-16 FGs), seven rebounds, and three assists in 36 minutes.
Flip Saunders
After the game, I asked Coach Saunders asses how the defensive plan against Duncan worked. He said:
“Well we didn’t want to double at all. Every time we doubled, we gave up a three-point shot, which we weren’t supposed to be doing. So, like I said, when you play against a good team and you don’t stay with your game plan, you mess up, you pay the price.
The story of Andray Blatche has become lost in this absolute mess of a season for the Washington Wizards. Blatche wasn’t exactly “the” headliner coming out of the summer and into training camp, the knee of Gilbert Arenas was. Still, Andray was seen as very key to hope for success this year.
Some have called Blatche a ’20-10 waiting to happen’, but he has only proven to be a frustratingly perpetual unknown. With this being his fifth year since drafted, questions wondering if Blatche would finally mix maturity and focus with his amazing skills and athleticism were getting national attention.
Despite starting off slow in Saturday’s game against the Spurs, Blatche continued to keep his head in the game, making hustle plays like drawing offensive fouls on both DeJuan Blair and Richard Jefferson in the third quarter. Andray ended up with five points on 2-6 FGs, six rebounds, a steal, an assist, a turnover and three blocks in 27 total minutes.
Still, in his post-game press conference, Flip Saunders was not totally satisfied with the progression of Blatche’s game and his decision making on the offensive end:
“I’d like more for Andray to stay around the basket. He keeps floating back out, the reason we want to go that way is to have a big that we can put down there.
We’ve seen the dunking prowess of the lengthy JaVale McGee …
But did you know that last year, in only 75 games and 1,143 minutes, McGee dunked more than an entire NBA Team?
JaVale McGee … 80
San Antonio Spurs … 73
42% of McGee’s FGs were dunks.
His 80 dunks were good enough for 29th in the NBA and 5th among rookies, after: Brook Lopez, Greg Oden, Jason Thompson, and Marreese Speights.
He finished 8th in the league in ‘Minutes Per Dunk’ – 14.65 – after: Shaquille O’Neal, Ryan Hollins, DeAndre Jordan, Pops Mensah-Bonsu, Greg Oden, Dwight Howard, and Andrew Bynum.
JaVale, amongst playing a Transformer and Wolverine, has a staring role in his own movie short. What exactly it’s about is left for the viewer to interpret.
The stories will read that the Wizards got “out manned” by the Spurs last night. True, with Gilbert Arenas, Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood, DeShawn Stevenson and Etan Thomas out, the Wiz were not playing with a full deck. But you won’t get many tears from the Spurs. Tim Duncan is still trying to get in rhythm from being injured and Manu Ginobili hasn’t seen the court since February 11th.
No, the Wizards got out veteraned and out experienced.
Wiz faithful, within the organization and in the stands, bow their heads everyday in hopes of a future full of health. But who are we kidding? The will be injuries and the Wizards will have to persevere if they expect to contend for anything.
Grow up kids, grow up fast.
Dominic McGuire is on track. He still has a ton to learn, but his hustle swag, which has induced a starting role, will be invaluable next season when he is the 8th man…..or better. JaVale McGee gets cut some slack. The kid is still growing into his body.
Why am I pumped (or seised) about a preseason game tonight? Yea, well, got my DVR set up….and we’ve got the season’s starting lineup (Etan, DeShawn, Antonio, Caron and Antawn) ready to show….something.
What about Pop’s beard? Something he’s been needing to do for a while. The guy doesn’t exactly have the best…..complexion. And our buddy Haywoode Workman is refereeing again.
Q1
Possession #1:Tim Duncan gets an offensive board with both Antawn Jamison and DeShawn Stevenson right in front of him…nobody puts a body on somebody. 2nd chances are a killer, Spurs don’t take advantage…two Kurt Thomas misses.
Jeff from CelticsBlog.com is doing the grunt work to put together a comprehensive NBA preview from bloggers ’round the ‘sphere. The Atlantic Division Preview was first, and now the Southwest Division is out. Here are the highlights from the participating bloggers for each team:
Dallas Mavericks
[Mavs Moneyball] The single biggest move made in the offseason was the dismissal of head coach Avery Johnson and the hiring of Rick Carlisle. The Mavs have the luxury (or curse) of having their core team signed for some time. This continuity will certainly help the team transition under a new coach, as they only need to adapt to him rather than a bunch of new faces. Prediction: 55-27
Houston Rockets
[Dream Shake] The Artest trade will go down as one of the biggest steals in NBA history if you ask me, and since you did, that’s my stance. Even if Greene turns out to be a solid player, we got a top 30 player for a rookie, an old PG and a future very late round pick (I can only assume). That’s a steal as long as Ron Ron can play more like No Lay-ups and less like Crazy Pills. I believe he can. Prediction: 63-19
Did you see it? Phil’s moment at the end of the 3rd quarter of game 5 against the Spurs? I love NBA mic’d up and the required between quarter interviews.
Fresh off pleading his “case” to Steve Javie, Phil turned to chat with TNT’s Craig Sager. Sager asked Phil about his talk with Javie (most think it’s spelled ‘Javy’, and NBA Draft.net thinks he looks like Martha Plimpton)….Phil exclaimed that the refs gave Kurt Thomas an extra FT. Thomas made a bucket, was fouled, and sent to the line for an And1 opportunity with just under a minute left in the third. Phil said he wasn’t paying attention, making a sub, and that Kurt Thomas missed his initial FT attempt, but then was given a second, which he made.
Marv Albert and Doug Collins did a double-take……and checked the replay. No dice Zen Master, didn’t happen. But did Phil Jackson really believe that Kurt Thomas shot an extra free-throw?
We are all aware of Coach Jackson’s mind games, on and off the court, with referees, opponents, the media, and even his own players (in a homeless man’s Clockwork Orange kind of way). He’s already called the Zen Master, now I’m adding the title of Minister of Mental Trickery (in a Saddam Hussein era Iraqi Minister kind of way- they had a ton of those guys)…..and maybe Jedi should be added to the moniker list as well.
I must admit that I might be suffering from ‘boy who cried wolf’ syndrome, as it’s to the point where I simply assume that everything that comes out of Phil Jackson’s mouth is some sort of trickery, or at least serving a purpose.
Did Phil really think that the refs gave Kurt Thomas two free-throws? Could he have been planting a sympathetic seed in Steve Javie’s head which might benefit the Lakers in the 4th? Might Jackson be making the entire story up to Craig Sager?
Well, none of us were surprised that Caron Butler sat out last night. No word on his status for the 4 game west coast trip. Tony Longoria Parker was not in the lineup as he is out for about 3 weeks with a heel. By now, we all know the outcome, so let me provide this video of Big Tigger dunking before I get to the game notes.
Uhhh….enjoy?
I must say, a much better effort than those idiot fans who were trying to jump off of one leg during the Laker game.
I saw it live and there was nothing exciting about this game at all….and the outcome, well, it was expected. Now, I will say that in my opinion, the Wizards played a decent bit better in last night’s 5th loss in a row than they did in the previous four.
“Caron said it best, ‘You can’t under estimate our will.’ And he’s our leader.” -Eddie Jordan
A couple other good games on the NBA League Pass tonight. LeBron James makes his first trip back to the Palace in Detroit since…..well, you know. And I’d also like to keep my eye on the Raptors-Grizzlies game…aww eff that, Raptors are up 19 now with 6:43 left in the 3rd, back to LeBron. Thing is, I only get the NBA League Pass on the main TV. The compromise? Wizards-Spurs on the left and right TV feeds, sound up. Boo-ya. (I can’t believe I just typed ‘boo-ya’)
In any case, here we go. For some reason, I decided to switch my hosting services late this afternoon, so truthaboutit.net is down right now because things are switching over. Oh well.
So, the Spurs…. gotta defend that pick and roll Son. And let’s play church….I, the preacher, will say, “And the Lawd says, you gotta stop Tony Parka” (in my best Eddie Murphy, Coming to America, talent show scene voice), and you, the choir, say, “Amen.”
Happy belated birthday to Brendan Todd Haywood btw….turned 28 yesterday. Aww naw, I know the Spurs dance team is not wearing chaps tonight, the only thing that would top that is if they were all wearing glasses and business suits. Another BT-dub….look out for my NBA Cheerleader Rankings in an upcoming blog post.
