Of mice, of men … the Hawks were the predator and the Wizards were the prey. Early, both teams were cold. I’ll concur with a comment of Wiz broadcast TV HOFer (or at least he should be if he’s not … if that type of thing exists), Steve Buckhantz, who said that unlike versus the Pistons, the Wizards started against Atlanta with energy. They just couldn’t buy a basket, and neither could the Hawks in the beginning.

The Wizards should have felt at home though, the Phillips Arena looked dwarfed by the Verizon Center in capacity. After getting down by as many as 22 points, 40-18 with 3:43 left in the second quarter, the Wizards made the game competitive, getting as close as two points, 66-64, with 11:41 left in the game. But they never could get over a seven point hump late in the fourth quarter.

The Wizards were bested by only 43.5% shooting from the Hawks and a couple ineffectual turnovers. They lost to the better team, and not necessarily because of lack of effort, but because they are not very good.

It’s worth observing that their reason to play inspired basketball has drastically dwindled. If two things plague this team most, one is lack of discipline, which is on the account of the players inconsistently following Flip Saunders’ game plan and often free-styling at crucial points of the game. The second is that the Wizards are not hungry, as in, ‘Did you see D-League call-up Mario West hustle his ass off?’ West had four offensive rebounds in 12 minutes.

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With the latest goings-ons with Andray Blatche, I naturally was curious as to what two of the franchise’s more veteran players thought of the situation. Both Antawn Jamison and Brendan Haywood have played with Blatche for his entire career. So, it was worth asking them their opinion of the progress, especially maturity-wise, that Andray has made so far this season, and how big of a setback this latest one-game suspension for complaining about shots, among other things, was for the 23-year old, i.e., are those such as myself and Mike Jones overreacting to this most recent incident.

After the Pistons game, I posed some questions to each. One answered like a team captain, saying Blatche has got to “grow from it, and it’s not a time to really chastise him and dwell on it,” and also indicating that he would talk to Andray about it on the plane to Atlanta.

The other answered like … well, like he really didn’t want to answer. Just watch.

[Note #1: From the description above, you can probably figure out who was whom. It’s worth noting that after I turned off the camera, Haywood said to me (half-jokingly), “I’m a vet, you’re not going to get me like that.”

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Well, the Wizards lost again on Sunday, nothing new. Thing is, they actually looked decent, as they did on Friday, but shot themselves in the foot, if you will, with 19 turnovers. By the way, go read this interesting piece on True Hoop regarding the NBA and gun-play analogies.

Stepping back, it’s still hard to fathom how surreal the deplorable state of the franchise is. Whether it’s Gun-Gate related or not, every day more of the shit show emerges from the sewers, literally. Tales of Gilbert Arenas taking a dump in the shoe of Andray Blatche … I mean Christ, how immature can you get?

Let’s see, what else? Caron Butler, while off games are okay, is still a quandary — hey, Caron wanted to be “the man” and then got all sad with his second fiddle when Arenas returned, but now that Arenas is gone again …

Of course, unfortunately it seems that Caron’s definition of being “the man” involves taking bad shots and halting ball movement. I don’t mean to unfairly pick on Butler, but again, for someone who all but rested his laurels on defensive improvement before the season, it was interesting, as pointed out to me by Mike Prada of Bullets Forever, that on Friday against the Magic, Butler was matched up against Matt Barnes while the just returning Mike Miller had to take on Orlando’s big gun, Vince Carter.

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[Note: Obviously I would have liked to post this piece pertaining to Friday night's win against the Magic, the first home game after Gilbert Arenas' suspension, before Sunday's game against the Hornets ... but life happens and time is my enemy.]

Gilbert Arenas’ corner locker sat relatively empty. A couple pairs of shoes, straightened, likely by someone other than Arenas, a rubber training/physical therapy band, and an autographed basketball card of Sam Cassell taped to the back wall were all that remained. Lonely stood the area of the locker room where the media used to congregate, waiting and salivating for Gilbert to preach in his unfiltered, matter-of-fact, unguarded superstar kind of way. Not that night. Maybe not ever again.

Before the Wizards faced the Magic on Friday evening, those around the Verizon Center spoke of Gilbert in the past tense. Understandable since the banner outside of the arena featuring Arenas was removed, his jerseys taken off shelves of souvenir stands, and his image scrubbed from promotional videos and the WashingtonWizards.com website. A dramatic reaction from the franchise or a necessary message to Arenas and fans? It’s not like Gilbert’s image was completely purged. There’s still a framed photo of Arenas in the media lounge. Several pictures of him are still prevalent on a wall collage right outside of the locker room. But I can’t help but think the actions taken were more grandstanding in mind than reason, especially when a local news station was so conveniently there to film the banner removal.

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Brendan Haywood

On needing a win …

“We’ve dug a hole enough, one that seems like it’s too big, but it’s not because we’re going to keep fighting, we going to keep chipping away, and hopefully we’re going to make this playoff push.”

Mike Miller

On passing instead of shooting …

“Believe me, I hear the fans telling me to shoot more, whatever, but you know what? Passing the ball and getting the ball poppin’ is something that when you see gets going, it’s like a domino effect. Once it gets poppin’, if you saw tonight, we got it going early, and now everyone wants to do it. And it’s fun basketball. That’s how you’re supposed to play and it’s fun to win.”

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Ok, maybe “argue” is a strong word. Perhaps it was a disagreement … a contention … a discussion … a conversation. Whatever it was, Brendan Haywood and Antawn Jamison certainly weren’t on the same page regarding defense for a moment toward the end of the second quarter against the Cavs on Wednesday.

I couldn’t quite hear all of the audio that goes with the scene above, I just know it began with a quizzical point by Jamison followed by Haywood putting his hands in the air in a defense manner and saying “I don’t know,” several times before getting his ‘I DO know’ point across. The players then moved on with the basketball game.

Now, I don’t profess to know much about the scheming and assignments in Flip Saunders’ defense. So, let’s take a screen-shot look at the play in question.

The Wizards seem to be in a match-up containment zone looking thing. Boykins is playing in the passing lane, facing West, but not up on him. Haywood steps out, seemingly to contain West. Read more »

{Scenes from last night in Cleveland}

I couldn’t exactly get inside the brains of the Washington Wizards, but my imagination did.

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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: Read more »

With the Washington Wizards, I could point to a ton of self-induced actions that don’t go right during the course of a game. It boils down to a team that’s lacking focus, fundamentals, and a commitment to each other.

One specific time period that highlights much of the Wizards’ woes came over a three-minute span in the fourth quarter against Oklahoma City on Tuesday. From the start of the quarter, when the game was tied at 76, to around the 7:30 mark, the Wizards and Thunder traded baskets. A Gilbert Arenas three-pointer put the Wizards up 90-89 at the 7:43 mark.

Over the next 180 seconds or so, with breaks for two Flip Saunders timeouts, the Thunder went on an 11-2 run, effectively ending the game. Here’s how it happened.

{7:34 – 4th Q}

Eric Maynor splits Andray Blatche and Earl Boykins. Andray, you’re reaching instead of moving your feet to close the gap. Your feet were growing roots. Your argument is invalid. Read more »

I think I’ve been in denial. And by using the work ‘think’, I’m probably in full-blown denial.

I keep thinking that the Wizards, with all of their talent and health (of the big three), will somehow turn the corner. That they’ll somehow get over their loser’s mentality.

It’s not going to happen. This team is emitting the perception that they are rotten to the core. If they play like they have no guts then they need to be gutted.

Then again …. maybe, juuuuust maybe …. I mean, look at the Eastern Conference playoff race. The Wizards are only 2.5 games out of eighth/seventh place and four games from sixth. Not exactly what the team was aiming for, but if they could get themselves together and sneak in as a low seed, who knows what could happen.

Who am I kidding? Again, that denial thing.

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