The Wizards and Knicks face off for the second time this season, the previous meeting coming in Washington, a 99-96 Knicks win (the Wizards have only one trip to New York on their schedule). Without much deliberation, let’s get into tonight’s 3-on-3, featuring John Kenney (@JohnBKenney) of KnickerBlogger.net, the TrueHoop Network’s Knicks blog, along with TAI’s Rashad Mobley (@Rashad20) and myself, Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It). Three questions, three answers starts now…

#1) When John Wall and Jeremy Lin (as a member of the Dallas Mavericks ) faced off in the 2010 NBA Summer League, Wall had trouble defending Lin (as did Lin with Wall). John went under a lot of screens and Jeremy made him pay. The Wizards won 88-82, thanks to 23 points from Cartier Martin, but Lin did score 11 fourth quarter points. Tonight will be the first meeting between the two since. Considering the environment (especially Lin’s recent boost into the limelight as the Knicks prepare to play Washington without Carmelo Anthony (groin), Amar’e Stoudemire (death in the family) and Baron Davis (presumably a beard-related injury or ailment otherwise)), how will this Wall-Lin matchup play out?

KENNEY: While many have focused on Lin’s offensive explosion, his defense has also been pleasantly surprising. Wall’s athleticism makes him a tough matchup to defend, but if Lin’s performances against Deron Williams and Devin Harris are any indication, he’ll do a fine job. (I also wouldn’t be surprised to see 6-foot-5 Iman Shumpert defend Wall at times.) And on offense, I expect Lin to score around 20 points, while delivering a number of nice assists to Tyson Chandler. The one concern should be that Lin must avoid foul trouble. If Lin is out for extended periods of the game, that means more Toney Douglas (currently in the worst slump of his career,) which helps explain why Lin played the entire 2nd, 3rd AND 4th quarters against the Jazz. Luckily, having Tyson defending the rim is a good safety net against Wall blow-bys.

MOBLEY: Based on the results of the last two Knicks victories, Lin will have to carry the offensive burden in order for his team to win–which is the equivalent of playing with house money. He’ll play loose and carefree. Coach Randy Wittman will tell Wall to run the offense and play within himself like he did against the Raptors. But Wall will struggle to balance that with his own competitive streak, and his numbers and overall game will suffer.

WEIDIE: Jeremy Lin will get his… Why? Because he’s a smart player, has great confidence, New York will be in desperate need of scoring, and Washington’s bigs are generally inept of pick-and-roll defense (aside from rookie Jan Vesely). Screening action has proved to be Lin’s bread and butter in his two dazzling games with the Knicks. They honeymoon, however, will be over for Jeremy tonight. Not that the Wizards will intimidate a depleted Knicks squad by any means, but I think John Wall remembers that Summer League battle and his athleticism advantage will overwhelm Lin (even though Lin has legitimate 6-foot-3 height). Before the game Sam Cassell was telling Wall in the locker room that Lin will try to bait Wall into some charges, so watch out for that.

Read more »

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.

“You’re not going to dribble out of the double team more times than not,” Wittman later reiterated. ”You’ve just got to accept it, move the ball, make plays. Because then, when you do that three or four times early in that fourth quarter, they’re going to say, ‘We can’t double anymore and we got to play our own.’ Now it opens things back up again. We never made that adjustment, I thought, in that fourth quarter.”

Read more »

[The DC Council -- After each Wizards game: setting the scene, rating the starters, assessing the bench, providing the analysis, and catching anything that you may have missed. Unlike the real DC Council, everything here is over the table. Click here for cumulative DC Council 3-star ratings over the course of the season. Game 25 contributors: Markus Allen (@mayminded), Rashad Mobley (@Rashad20), and Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It).]

Score

Washington Wizards 111 vs Toronto Raptors 108 [box score]

Read more »

[The DC Council -- After each Wizards game: setting the scene, rating the starters, assessing the bench, providing the analysis, and catching anything that you may have missed. Unlike the real DC Council, everything here is over the table. Click here for cumulative DC Council 3-star ratings over the course of the season. Game 24 contributors: Adam McGinnis (@adammcginnis), John Converse Townsend (@JohnCTownsend), and Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It).]

Score

Washington Wizards 81 vs Los Angeles Clippers 107 [box score]

Read more »

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.”

Sounds like mumbo-jumbo, but its essence conveys that the Wizards are still a first offensive option, me-first team; they have those kind of players. These efforts are led by the no longer fresh-faced players brought in by Ernie Grunfeld who were supposed to help establish new traditions — the McGees, Youngs and Andray Blatches of the scene – long before it became a catch-phrase motto for this season under Ted Leonsis.

Read more »

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.

Read more »

[The DC Council -- After each Wizards game: setting the scene, rating the starters, assessing the bench, providing the analysis, and catching anything that you may have missed. Unlike the real DC Council, everything here is over the table. Game 23 contributors: Adam McGinnis (@adammcginnis), Arish Narayen, and Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It).]

Score

Washington Wizards 89 at Toronto Raptors 106 [box score]

Read more »

Players and coaches are programmed not to admit overconfidence publicly, but in the crevices of their locker room or practice courts, the Wizards and Raptors have to be looking at tonight’s game and thinking to themselves, “We are definitely winning.”  In their last three games, the Wizards defeated the lowly Bobcats, came close to defeating the Orlando Magic (they aren’t playing well now, but they still have Dwight F. Howard), and the Chicago Bulls (arguably the best team in the league).  Facing the Raptors, a team that gave the Wizards their first victory this season, would seem to be an easier task.  The Raptors were just thoroughly whipped by the Celtics in Boston, just one night after being whipped by the Hawks in Toronto.  They have to be thinking that their confidence can and will be restored against the lowly Wizards — a team they already have extra motivation to defeat after losing in Washington on January 10th. Before we see which franchise can take advantage of the other, Ryan McNeill (@ryanmcneill) of Hoops Addict, TAI’s Adam McGinnis (@AdamMcGinnis) and yours truly, Rashad Mobley (@rashad20), will go 3-on-3 starting right now.

#1) During his six-year tenure as president/GM of the Toronto Raptors, Bryan Colangelo enjoyed some success before the departure of Chris Bosh, but since then, he has been criticized for his draft failures, the Raptors’ lack of a defensive mindset, and his puzzling free agent signings (most recently Jamaal Magloire and Anthony Parker).  During his nine-year tenure as Wizards team president, Ernie Grunfeld is credited with building playoff teams during the Gilbert Arenas era, but since then his moves (or lack thereof) have the Wizards mired in something worse than mediocrity.  Both GMs are now asking their fans to trust in the development of their young players, and to be patient with the rebuilding process once again.  Which GM deserves to be relieved of their duties?

McNEILL:   Maybe I’m being a homer, but I’m voting for Grunfeld. Besides lucking into John Wall with an easy pick, what has he done to warrant trust during his time in Washington? Colangelo was burned by Bosh, but there isn’t anyone surrounding the team who honestly thought he should have dealt him before that summer. Even the drafting of Bargnani is looking “safe” considering his development and how that draft class is now shaking out. Again, this is a homer pick, but consider Bosh was in place, and LaMarcus Aldridge (2nd pick after Bosh in 2006) was a redundant piece, so the only other player who might have been a better fit is Rudy Gay. So, sorry, I’m not buying the argument that five years with Brandon Roy (6th pick) is better than the decade Toronto will get with Bargnani.

MOBLEY:  I want to say Colangelo, because those rabid, supportive Raptors fans have watched Vince Carter and Chris Bosh lead the franchise to the playoffs, and now they have to watch Andrea Bargnani, DeMar DeRozan and Jose Calderon lead them to the lottery.  But Grunfeld is trying to rebuild the Wizards franchise into a contender for the third time in nine years, and everyone who started with him from Gilbert Arenas to Eddie Jordan to Flip Saunders is gone.  The official rebuild will begin when he follows suit.

McGINNIS:  Since Ted Leonsis took over ownership in 2010, Grunfeld has been a good solider in the new mandate of freeing up cap space and acquiring young players. This does not absolve his past mistakes or mean that he warrants a contract extension after it expires at end of this season. Flip Saunders was relieved of his duties and the company line was team needed a new voice, but this also applies to the basketball personnel department. It would seem appropriate for a fresh decision-maker to lead the Washington rebuild and beyond. Colangelo could have a future super star in 2011 draft pick Jonas Valanciunas, and with a loaded 2012 draft, those two picks could determine whether the Raptors GM is worth keeping around.

Read more »

Twenty-two games, one-third of the season, is over for the Washington Wizards. To say the least, it’s been tough on this rebuilding team. And to stress that “team” part, let’s see which combination of players has been working the best together, and which combinations haven’t.

According to BasketballValue.com, 177 different five-man units have seen action for the Washington Wizards this season. 177 sounds like a lot, but only 54 of those units have seen more than five minutes of court time together, so this post/results will focus on those, i.e., no need to include units such as John Wall, Jordan Crawford, Roger Mason, Rashard Lewis and Jan Vesely, who have seen a total of 0.03 minutes on the court together.

Five units have seen 31.75-percent of the total action. Those five units are:

1. Wall – Young – Lewis – Blatche – McGee (10.44% of court time, 110.25 minutes)
2. Wall – Young – Singleton – Booker – McGee (7.1%, 74.97)
3. Wall – Young – Singleton – Blatche – McGee (5.81%, 61.37)
4. Wall – Young – Lewis – Vesely – McGee (4.46%, 47.1)
5. Wall – Crawford – Lewis – Blatche – McGee (3.93%, 41.55)

Of those 54 “five minutes or more” lineups, these are the top five in Offensive Rating (an estimation of points scored per 100 possesions):

1. Mack – Crawford – Mason – Lewis – Seraphin (158.82 Off Rtg; 9.58 minutes)
2. Mack – Young – Singleton – Booker – Seraphin (140; 5.27)
3. Wall – Crawford – Young – Vesely – Blatche (137.5; 8.28)
4. Mack – Young – Singleton – Booker – Turiaf (136.36; 6.07)
5. Wall – Young – Booker – Lewis – Seraphin (136.36; 5.62)

Read more »

Continued success in team sports is achieved through sacrifice; the best squads accept this, understanding that individual achievements must sometimes be tabled for the betterment of the team—roll tape of Michael Jordan deferring to Steve Kerr in Game 6 of the 1997 NBA Finals.

When great players are unwilling to make sacrifices, Jordan has confessed, individual goals and accolades are even tougher to achieve. So why do the stubborn Wizards, selfish by self-description, refuse to play team basketball? The better question asks what can be done to change their approach.

The answer might surprise you: ramp up competition for individual rewards.

As explained by Brian Mossop, former neuroscientist and current community editor at Wired: Read more »

Look, Dwight Howard has long known that he does not want to be a member of the Orlando Magic past this season, so does it matter that his current team is in such disarray, losers of four games in a row with Howard calling out his teammates for effort? Probably not. In fact, it likely prompts GM Otis Smith even more to make a move, but it doesn’t make him any less desperate. (Read: this painfully drags on for Orlando up to the March 15 trade deadline… Have a fun next six weeks Magic fans!) So with Baby Dwight wanting a cure-all change of venue, but not able to cure-all as Superman himself, his team takes on the lowly Washington Wizards tonight, with Howard likely preparing to be as proud as a schoolyard bully (Orlando is favored by 10 points). This 3-on-3 drill prior to possibly just one of Howard’s last 23 games in a Magic uniform includes Nate Drexler (@natedrex) of TrueHoop Network blog MagicBasketball.net, along with TAI’s John Converse Townsend (@JohnCTownsend) and yours truly, Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It). Three questions, three answers starts now…

#1) Which stat is more surprising? That the Washington Wizards have a higher offensive rebound rate (ORB%) than the Orlando Magic (0.261 ORB% compared to 0.259 for Orlando; league average is 0.264)?  NOTE: WAS eFG% = 0.442, 29th in NBA; ORL eFG% = 0.495, 9th in NBA)….

OR, that JaVale McGee is shooting worse on free-throws than Dwight Howard? (McGee is at 0.433 this season, 0.600 for his career; Howard is at 0.460 this season, 0.592 for his career.)

DREXLER: This is tough, because neither of these surprise me all that much. I suppose JaVale getting out sniped by Dwight from the charity stripe takes the cake, though. Look, when you have two bigs who shoot 60-percent and below for their careers, no amount of badness should catch you off guard, but McGee is getting close to 30-percent land! The biggest surprise of all is that no matter how hard I try to convince myself that JaVale McGee has star potential it just isn’t so. Guy sure is athletic, though. Why is it that athletic guys can’t shoot free throws?

TOWNSEND: Dwight Howard has always been consistent, if reliably unreliable, from the charity stripe, so I’m more surprised by JaVale McGee’s continued struggles at line. McGee has demonstrated a bit of a weakness for jump shots and perimeter-oriented play, as if he was a two-guard trapped in a 7-footer’s body, making it tough to comprehend how his free-throw percentage has dipped almost 25 points since his rookie season.

Read more »

[The DC Council -- After each Wizards game: setting the scene, rating the starters, assessing the bench, providing the analysis, and catching anything that you may have missed. Unlike the real DC Council, everything here is over the table. Game 21 contributors: Markus Allen (@mayminded), John Converse Townsend (@JohnCTownsend), and Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It).]

Score

Washington Wizards 88 at Chicago Bulls 98 [box score]

Read more »

Derrick Rose had a tough Sunday against the Miami Heat. His team lost, and he missed two crucial free-throws with his Bulls down one point and 22 seconds left. He missed a potential game-tying jumper with three seconds left too. He took it kind of hard.

“I think of my legacy, I want people to think of me as being a clutch player,” said Rose before facing the Wizards in Washington the next night. “Someone that always comes through a majority of the time when they’re on the court, and yesterday it hurt a little bit, but I know it will help me in the long run.”

Rose was later asked if it’s hard to adjust, coming off a tough 97-93 loss like that on the road in Miami and into a road game the next night in another city.

“Aww hell no. Hell no. It just makes me hungrier, where tonight… I’m going to try to go crazy.”

Read more »

Andray Blatche is out 3-5 weeks with a strained left calf muscle, Washington Wizards coach Randy Wittman announced prior to tonight’s game. In the locker room a couple hours before facing the Chicago Bulls, John Wall spoke with the media about life, for the time being, without ‘Dray.

Q: How do you replace Blatche’s points?

WALL: “Look for Jan [Vesely], Book [Trevor Booker], Kevin [Seraphin], and each of those guys to step up in that role and play the four position… Just do the best they can. We’re not telling them to be ‘Dray [Blatche], but just be the player they is and do the right thing to help us out. You’re going to lose a lot of points from ‘Dray, but you can bring out the assets on the defensive end with the other guys. So they can still help us.”

Q: How does the offense change without the skill set Blatche provides as a big man?

WALL: “Just basically try to get them the ball in situations where you know they excel at. Don’t try to put them in the same situations that you put ‘Dray in, and shooting 19, 17-foot jump shots. You try to get them close to the basket where they can penetrate and kind of find guys at the free-throw line area where they feel more comfortable at.”

Read more »

Chicago Bulls in town, not the Charlotte Bobcats. Derrick Rose and Richard Hamilton? Back for Chicago. Luol Deng? Out for a bit. Andray Blatche? Questionable. President Obama? Nope. The last time people expected Washington to lose this much (aside from pretty much all the time) was the Oklahoma City Thunder game. The Wizards somehow won that one. Chicago is favored by nine points on the road this evening. Should you get any ideas? Probably not. Chicago has the second best Defensive Rating in the NBA (97.4 points allowed per 100 possessions)… the Philadelphia 76ers are best (94.6 DRtg), and we all know how games against the Sixers work out for Washington. Nonetheless, let’s do the 3-on-3 drill… featuring Beckley Mason of HoopSpeak.com along with TAI’s John Converse Townsend and Kyle Weidie. Three questions, three answers starts now…

#1) Derrick Rose will be walking into the Verizon Center with the weight of Sunday night’s loss to the Miami Heat (partly due to his missed free throws) squarely on his shoulders. Not only will John Wall have to face off against a motivated Rose, but he’ll most likely have to face off again John Lucas, who had a career game against him on January 11 (25 points, 8 assists and 8 rebounds — although backup Bulls PG CJ Watson, unavailable in the previous meeting between these two teams like Rose, is also back).  Who has a better game tonight, Wall or Rose?

MASON: Rose has the better game because he’s the better player playing on the better team. Especially troubling for Wall, who struggles with turnovers in pick and roll sets, is that the Bulls play awesome, suffocating pick and roll defense. I think the only way Wall has the better game is if it becomes a real up-and-down contest.

TOWNSEND: John Wall has flirted with triple-doubles for the past month; the numbers might convince you that Wall will get lucky tonight. But then you remember that Wall’s career averages against Chicago are, well, average — 13.3 points and 4.3 turnovers. Reality sets in: It’s Derrick Rose, not Wall, with the No. 1 stitched on the back of his jersey, and it’s Rose who has learned to bend the laws of physics, and it’s Rose who wins the game.

WEIDIE: Dare I say Wall? (For dubious reasons…) Rose missed the initial meeting on Jan. 11, then came back to play against Boston and Toronto (both wins for Chicago), then missed the Bulls’ next four games. He’s played in four games, 156 total minutes, since coming back exactly one week ago, and saw 45 minutes of action against the Miami Heat on Sunday in a game where both teams were clearly tired toward the end. Even if the Bulls really need him, and I doubt that they do, I’d expect Rose’s minutes to be limited in Washington… You know, the team opponents with nagging injuries to stars are always delighted to play.

Read more »