Posts tagged ‘chris paul’

Lob City comes to the District tonight… the highest highs and the lowest lows of the Wizards multiplied by the Los Angeles Clippers and divided by a 4-19 record against a 13-7 one. “I told them I’m pulling that cigarette out tonight,” said Wizards coach Randy Wittman before the game, referring to the very poor effort the Wizards gave in a loss to Toronto last night and how his team “fell off the wagon” back to poor habits. The coach is also going with Trevor Booker over Jan Vesely in the Wizards starting lineup. Talking to the Cook Book before the game, his focus will be keeping Blake Griffin away from the basket and on how the Wizards guard pick and rolls (Chris Paul runs a lot of them, Wittman admitted). What’s the key to stopping Paul on the P&Rs? “We got to make sure we stop the ball, make sure he can’t get in the lane. The more he’s in the lane, the more have to collapse, and the more the bigs are going to be open to throw the lob to,” said Booker. For tonight’s 3-on-3 drill we have Kevin Arnovitz (@kevinarnovitz) of ESPN TrueHoop/ClipperBlog, along with TAI’s Rashad Mobley (@Rashad20) and Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It). Three questions, three answers starts now…

1) What’s the No. 1 thing Chris Paul has that John Wall doesn’t, but really needs to get?

ARNOVITZ: Vision. When Paul has the ball in the half court, he’s thinking about one thing — where he is relationally to the other shotmakers on the court and those on the defense who can alter those shots. Wall is speedy, but like most people in their early 20s – apologies to Louis CK – he has no idea how to do the job yet. That will change.

MOBLEY: Since this is the Super Bowl weekend, I’ll start with a football analogy. Rookie running backs tend ignore their offensive line and to try to use their God-given athleticism to make a big play.  Seasoned running backs patiently wait for the offensive line to open a hole (they may even rest their hands on the backs of the O-line while the play is unfolding) then they run right through. There’s an impatience to Wall’s game right now that manifests itself via the one-man fast breaks, the rushed jumpers, and the exasperation with his teammates. Chris Paul, with talented teammates in Los Angeles and less talented teammates in New Orleans, is a patient point guard. He lets the game come to him, he sets up teammates, and if he’s needed to do more, he does that too.

WEIDIE: Pace. Watch Chris Paul stop and go, use a screen how he sees fit, get a defender on his back. Paul has developed a killer jumper over his NBA career, but he started as a player who could control a game’s pace, use his quicks deceptively when he needs to, and create passing lanes with the measured ability to see a play unfold. In other words, chill sometimes John Wall.

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{Wall vs. Paul - photo: K. Weidie}

I’ve been a Philadelphia Eagles for over 25 years. I’ve endured ups, downs, mediocrity and everything else associated with loving a team too much. But because I’ve lived in Washington for most of those years, and NFL League Pass is still a relatively new invention, I’ve seen more way more Redskins games than I have Eagles games — which means I saw plenty of Joe Gibbs in his heyday.

One of the staples of the Gibbs era was his ability to make halftime adjustments based on what the other team was or was not doing. Part of this ability was based on his stellar assistant coaching staff, and part of it was that Gibbs often paid attention to even the smallest of details.

New Orleans Hornets coach Monty Williams is from the Washington D.C. area (Oxon Hill, Maryland to be exact), so maybe he was somehow inspired by Gibbs last night, because his team’s second half play was key to the Hornets’ 92-81 victory.

Prior to the game, Williams was asked if he was concerned about his team’s energy level against the Wizards.  Starters David West, Emeka Okafor and Chris Paul had all logged 40 or more minutes against the Boston Celtics, and now they had to turn around and play again the next night, on the road no less. Still, Williams had no concerns, saying: Read more »

Hilton Armstrong spent his first three-plus seasons playing with the New Orleans Hornets and Chris Paul. So naturally, his brain would be a good one to pick heading into tonight’s matchup between the Wizards and Hornets. Here are his responses on a couple issues we discussed:

On defending Chris Paul and the pick-and-roll:

“The guard needs to try to stay attached to him, which is obviously very hard to do … because easier said that done. But just try and stay up to him. When the pick comes, jump up, and the big has to be aggressive. You can’t just lay back and wait for him to come for you. You need to shrink the court on him and try to make him uncomfortable, and try and get the ball out of his hands. He likes to control the game, control the ball. If we get the ball out of his hand early and have weakside there stunting on for everybody, and if need be, have a full rotation, or whatever. But as long as the ball is out of his hands, we’ll be pretty good.”

On Paul’s tendencies that they want to keep him from doing:

“He loves to attack the big. Any situation, if there’s a big there, he’s going to try and attack him, try to get the big on his heels. If he’s on the wing, and he likes to come off the screen and cross over to the middle to he can see the full floor. Somebody is going to have to pick him up from there. Once he gets past the big, somebody’s going to have to pick him up, and they’re going to be open … the next man’s going to be open. Whoever’s helping, if they don’t step up, he’s got that little floater or jump shot. He’s a very intelligent point guard. He knows how to break a team down whether it’s passing or shooting.”

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{flickr/Keith Allison}

I managed to catch up with LeBron James in the visitor’s locker room before tonight’s Wizards-Heat game. He had plenty to say, on topics ranging from the Orlando Magic, to Justin Bieber, and even Yao Ming.

His most interesting answer was just one word — two letters. When asked if winning games will ultimately change people’s perceptions of both LeBron and the Miami Heat, LeBron responded:

“No.”

Well, I guess not everybody loves a winner. What can he do? What should he do?

Here are more sound bites from the King himself…. Read more »

A D.C. pic, commentary and links …

[Seeing D.C.'s Chinatown - K. Weidie]

Michael Lee has a good feature piece in the Post about Hilton Armstrong.
[Washington Post]

Armstrong also spoke with us on Saturday about the differences between the offense he participated in with Chris Paul in New Orleans and what’s been developing here with Flip Saunders and John Wall in Washington; and he compared Wall and Chris Paul a bit. Here’s video of that:

“Just be the standard big man … just rebound, defend, communicate on defense, help out pick and rolls, try to get everybody in the right place, be the big man behind everybody and help them out. Offensively, if I have something there, take it … don’t be shy. Just don’t try to force anything, just stay within my game, stay within my role.” -Hilton Armstrong on his role.

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Remember last year? I do. I blogged about it and all. In fact, I’ve been blogging about this Wizards team solid since October 2007. And what have I learned most? Curb your enthusiasm. Now, I’m not here to sell you a glass half-empty today that I purchased half-full yesterday. I do, as just about anyone involved with the Wizards, from within the organization to outside, from media to fans, have hope for a better future (thanks to, namely, John Wall and Ted Leonsis).

It’s just that being entrenched in D.C. sports and getting hype for what may lie ahead no longer go hand-and-hand, at least for me. I’m not sure if this feeling has existed within me the whole time, it’s just now I’m older, wiser. Or if the whole Gilbert Arenas gun ordeal last year (as the topping on other D.C. sports futility), which at one point had me contemplating ending this whole blog … briefly, has created a faintly apathetic feeling toward hope (or a hatred of false hope).

My point: Donovan McNabb comes to town and I shrugged my shoulders (and thanks to Mr. Irrelevant, I’ve also been cautioning people that we’ll likely see Rex Grossman start for a couple games). The Wizards land the No. 1 pick in the 2010 draft (okay, that was bat-sh*t surprising), and take Mr. John Wall … more shoulder shrugging (sort of).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than thankful that I’ll get to cover Wall, but right now, he’s just a fresh-faced kid who happens to wear the jersey of the NBA team I’m close to.

Not to be a Debbie Downer … I’m often a ‘It could always be worse’ type of guy. I’d rather have McNabb than Jason Campbell, and I’d trade Ricky Rubio and a futile rental of Mike Miller and Randy Foye for John Wall in a second. It’s just that … I am D.C. sports. Expecting a bad-case scenario (not necessarily the worst) has become the rule, not the exception.

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[Editor's note: Check out the debut of new TAI author, John Townsend. Read more about that John at the bottom of this post, but first, check out his piece about another John. -Kyle]

America always seems to need an enemy, whether they’re found in politics (terrorists!) or in sports (referee Dan Crawford for Mavericks fans).  Sure, there are times when our criticism of these villains is justified (British Petroleum), but just as often it is not (Steve Bartman).

The most celebrated, captivating products and people are the most polarizing as well.  We should expect this, especially considering the amount of time, money, and hopes being invested.  This all brings me to John Wall – savior or setback? The question was never will the Wizards select John Wall, but instead what will happen when they do.

photo courtesy of thomasbeisner's Flickr

The debate over whether or not John Wall is the answer in Washington, DC is groundless.  John Wall is one part of the solution to a greater basketball challenge.

Some will argue that taking a point guard with the number one overall pick is a waste, based on historical records.  Power forwards and centers who have been drafted number one overall have won 23 championships combined, while point guards, shooting guards and small forwards have only won nine.  However, it is important to note that there has been, and continues to be, a large disparity between frontcourt and backcourt players selected first overall.  No. 1 overall power forwards and centers have won more championships, not because they are necessarily better players, but as a result of being selected at that spot with greater regularity – 21 times since 1985.

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When I first saw the above video of Brendan Haywood training, I thought, ‘Hey, he and JaVale McGee both like to workout to the mellow sounds of Drake, Lil’ Wayne, and Trey Songzzzzzz just wanting to be successful’. Don’t believe me? Just watch … (well, until some facist decided to disable the audio on McGee’s workout vid because they probably believe in protecting the money going towards more Lil’ Weezy face tats and Drake eyebrow waxings more than they believe in an open source world … oh well).

Then I watched Haywood’s Workout Part II: Jump Shots Juice from Concentrate …. and said, ‘Hey, I recognize that workout guy, he’s The Hoops Whisperer’.

The Hoops Whisperer aka Idan Ravin is a guy based out of Washington, DC who used to be a lawyer, but is now a famed NBA basketball trainer, a job he just kinda fell into. Oh yea, he also runs ethnic dating sites such as Ethiopian Personals and Eligible Greeks in his spare time. No really, he does … go check a pretty good Wall Street Journal profile on Ravin. Too bad Oleksiy Pecherov is gone, maybe Ravin could have hooked him up via a future venture called ‘Ukrainian Ill Na Na’ dot com.

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