Normally we’d break down a play that the Wizards ran for the ‘Play Of The Night’. But, as you know, last night’s loss to the Celtics wasn’t quite normal. Instead, we’ll break down a pretty intelligent deception play from Boston … and in the process, you’ll just happen to see the clueless ways of the Wizards magnified.

This one starts with Rajon Rondo (1) bringing the ball up the middle of the floor. Boston’s bigs, Kevin Garnett (4) and Shaquille O’Neal (5), are posted at the elbows, Paul Pierce (3) is on the right wing, elbow extended, and Ray Allen (2) is on the right block. Since this play took play early in the third quarter, the Wizards’ starters are in: Kirk Hinrich (1), Gilbert Arenas (2), Al Thornton (3), Andray Blatche (4), and JaVale McGee (5).

Out of this set, Rondo uses the pick of Garnett (which Hinrich naturally goes under) to free up space, vision and a passing lane from his position on the left side of the court. As Rondo is moving, Pierce drops just a bit lower from his position. Allen, and here’s the part you could call a deception, has his head and eyes only focused on the Garnett/Rondo action — hence, the guy defending Allen, Arenas, has his defensive horse-blinders on and is only focused in that same direction. In fact, the head of every Wizard is pretty much frozen in the direction of Rondo, including Pierce’s defender, Thornton.

As Garnett turns clockwise to open for a pop out jumper, Pierce starts to cut baseline. Thornton is aware of this cut, but he’s not aware of what’s about to happen, because neither is Arenas. Just after Pierce begins his cut, Allen suddenly turns to screen Thornton. By the time Arenas becomes aware, it’s too late to communicate. Allen sets a great screen on Thornton, who, if he was more aware, would have been able to turn his body in the right direction to trail Pierce. Instead, Thornton turns the wrong way and gets caught up on the screen. Arenas, clearly confused himself, is not in good position to help on Pierce and switch with Thornton. The Wizards are clearly pretty unaware of scouting report action items.

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What do you write after a team shoots 65.8% (50-76 field-goals) on their way to a 114-83 win over the Wizards?

Chalk it up to the Boston Celtics being a great-passing veteran team at home and the Wizards being a non-passing, relatively inexperienced team on the road and move on, I suppose.

Oh, lest I forget a stat fact that you’ll surely be made aware of by others: the Boston Celtics had 32 assists, the Washington Wizards had 31 made field-goals.

But let’s go back to this field-goal percentage thing. It’s kind of like winning in overtime when you didn’t deserve it … a win is a win.

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Yes, this is going to be hyped all over the internets. And yes, I couldn’t resist.

The NBA playoff drool of “Glen” Big Baby Davis is as epic as Stephen Strasburg’s debut … and it occurred in the NBA Finals.

Also check:

Dictionary Definition: The Step-Back Corner Three Point Jumper by Kobe Bryant

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{Sam Cassell measures Earl Boykins next to a kid}

The Wizards have found a lot of ways to lose games this season. Monday’s 99-88 loss to the Boston Celtics wasn’t as disheartening as most of them. So, I guess you can chalk up another moral victory on the penitentiary walls of your Washington Wizards basketball fandom. Congrats.

Most fingers are pointing toward the fourth quarter and justifiably citing it as the main culprit. In the period, the Wizards only mustered 10 points to the 25 of the Celtics. Rasheed Wallace scored eight points by himself, and combined with Tony Allen, the duo put up 14 points and seven rebounds in the final period. Starters Paul Pierce (ankle injury) and Kendrick Perkins didn’t play in the last 12 minutes and Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett only played six minutes apiece in the fourth.

The Celtics bench came alive to save the day. Otherwise, Boston looked sloppy and old. Cherish that 2008 championship Celtics fans, it will be the only title you see from your current squad.

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Feel like I keep saying this, but here goes … The Wizards really need to win tonight against Indiana.

Enough about getting on the right track, pushing the tempo, finding a way to get Caron Butler involved, making free-throws, starting with energy, winning the battle on the boards, etc., etc..

All of that stuff is important. But the “this game starts and ends with _____” fill-in-the-blank cliché comes down to pride. Seems pretty simple.

Play like you want to win the game. Play like you have too much pride to lose to a team that should be inferior (especially without Danny Granger). A team that demoralized the Wizards last time out … known to many as “The Honeydew Game.”

The Wizards haven’t progressed much since candy dishes and fruit plates were strewn across the visitor’s locker room at Conseco Fieldhouse over a month ago. They currently stand equal to Indiana at 7-13. If the time to turn this thing around isn’t tonight, it might never happen.

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It's cloudy in the Nation's Capital - flickr/eugene

Well, last night was a tough one. I wasn’t as distraught/incensed as after the Charlotte or Toronto home losses. Rather, I was emotionally prepared for the inevitable. The Celtics are a damn good team. There’s no shame in losing to them. On the other hand, making mention of moral victories is loser talk.

Sure, it was only one game out of 82, no sense in dwelling on past defeats. But if each loss isn’t making the players and coaches more angry and determined than the previous one, then something isn’t right.  And I still don’t exactly get the feeling from the team, as a whole, that there’s a sense of urgency arising from these losses.

With the Indiana Pacers (who absolutely embarrassed Washington the last time they played) coming to D.C. on Saturday before the Wizards embark on a four game West Coast swing, playing seven out of the next eight on the road, there will be no shortage of tests/chances for this team to right the ship and prove themselves worthy. We will see.

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On this edition of the Dagger Report, Mike Prada of Bullets Forever and myself are joined by Mike Jones, currently the Wizards beat reporter for the Washington Times, and Jimmy Toscano of Celtics Blog.

With Mike, we discuss:

• Dealing with Gilbert Arenas in general and the exclusive he got with him this summer;
• His reaction when Arenas called the media “lazy”;
• Developing a rapport with players as a reporter;
• The current state of the Wizards and Arenas playing with a “video-game mentality”;
• The path Mike took to covering the Wizards at the Times;
• The back luck he faced on his first day on the job, covering a Wiz game in Cleveland … of all places;
• His next move as the Times has decided to cut its coverage of sports;
• The changing media landscape, its affect on local and national sports coverage, and the presence of blogs.

With Jimmy, we discuss:

• His foray, like Mike Prada and myself, into the locker room to cover an NBA team up close as a blogger;
• How Brian Scalabrine recognized Jimmy as a new face amongst the media and took the time to ask him his name, among the other characters of the Celtics locker room;
• The progression of Garnett’s knee, the statistical production of Paul Pierce, and the Celts in general.

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Most know about the time Ernie Grunfeld spent in the New York Knicks front office. And many probably have an idea that Madison Square Garden was Grunfeld’s home court for the final four seasons of his nine year NBA playing career. But did you know that Big Ern was on the floor the night Patrick Ewing made his NBA debut?

After playing his first two seasons in Milwaukee, and his next three with the Kansas City Kings, Grunfeld began his tenure in NYC in ’82-83 with the likes of Bill Cartwright, Bernard King (Grunfeld’s teammate at Tennessee), Paul Westphal, and one of my all-time favorite NBA names, Rory Sparrow. Grunfeld was 10th in minutes per game on a Hubie Brown led, 44-win Knicks team that made it to the Eastern Conference semifinals. But the Philadelphia 76ers, with Moses Malone, Julius Erving, and Mo Cheeks, swept the Knicks, advanced to beat Sidney Moncrief‘s Milwaukee Bucks in the conference finals, and swept the LA Lakers to win the ’83 NBA title.

Grunfeld and the 47-win Knicks fell short in the ’84 playoffs as well. This time going down in seven games to the Boston Celtics led by Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and the Chief Robert Parrish. Just as the 76ers did the previous season, the Celtics subsequently beat the Bucks in the East finals, and won the ’84 NBA championship, taking the Lakers in seven.

Tough times found the Knickerbockers in ’84-85. Cartwright missed the entire season and King only played 55 games. Not even Darrell Walker, in his second season and averaging a career-high 13.5 ppg, could help. A mere 24 wins and a frozen envelope later, Patrick Ewing magically landed in the Big Apple.

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We’ve heard it from Ernie Grunfeld before, most recently in an interview by Mike Prada of Bullets Forever.

We were the first to make a move, so everybody’s following us (chuckles).

True, the Wizards were the first to strike when they landed Mike Miller and Randy Foye. But it’s hard to laugh, or continue to pridefully boast about the move, when the cream of the Eastern Conference crop keeps passing the Wizards by.

Let’s quickly go through what the top three teams in the East (Orlando, Cleveland and Boston), have done this off-season. Read more »

You’ve seen the YouTubes of Nick Young playing in the Drew Summer League out in L.A. — you can find highlights of Young with JaVale McGee here and more sans McGee here.

But that’s not all Young has been doing. He and his fellow Trojan, Gabe Pruitt of the Celtics, recently attended a party at the Roadstarr Motorsports mansion. Elie Seckbach was the ‘Embedded Correspondent’ and leads video of the occasion via FanHouse.

I’ll let the clip do most of the talking, but just know you are about to see to following excursions of young NBA ballers:

• Nick Young has a posse: The Rich Family Click aka The Rich Youngs
• Yet another Nick Young nickname, ‘The Wiz Kid’
• Posse dude Mike Ski (sp?), a rapper, rhyming “do it big” with “do it big”
• Nick claiming his swagger is high and that he’s ‘jet riding’
• The posse having a “get numbers” contest
• When it comes to choosing between Kobe and LeBron, Nick chooses himself
• Nick  showing off his ‘Jesus Piece’
• Pruitt claiming that he and Young started a  trend of good players going to USC (SoCal’s all-time NBA roster)
• Hot girls dancing in their underwear and voguing in body paint
• Some dude who is evidently Nick Young in 10 years
• Young claiming he started the ‘fro hawk’ — gee, thanks
• Young expressing his desire to win the 6th man of the year and most improved player awards.

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