In December of 2009, the Toronto Raptors defeated the Washington Wizards in overtime, 109-107 – mainly because of a tough shot by Hedo Turkoglu.  The Wizards started slowly that game and found themselves quickly down 20-5, and in the end, they were just too gassed to close the deal in overtime.  Afterward, Flip Saunders had this to say:

“We just buried ourselves in such a hole. You look at the end, the shot Turkoglu makes, it’s like the basketball gods … I always say they have a way of equaling things. And we just didn’t do what we needed to do.”

Just a month earlier, the Wizards found themselves in a similar situation against the Miami Heat.  They started slow, fought hard to get back in the game, only to lose in the waning moments.  Again, Coach Saunders referenced these magical, mystical gods of basketball:

“I remember the first minute, falling behind by 19, not coming out with the energy that we have played previously in all the games.  The basketball gods will get you and you can’t cheat the game in a lot of situations.”

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Scenes from sitting on the baseline at a Washington Wizards 85-83 win over the Boston Celtics. -KW

Every team needs a Cartier Martin. The Wizards already have their Cartier Martin, a basketball player who will always do anything needed/asked of him … even if it’s going after an errant ball in the vicinity of a Kevin Garnett hip check.

I believe this is Garnett’s version of a sh*t-eating grin. Convincing.

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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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[A John Wall t-shirt seen at the 2010 Columbia Heights Day Festival.]

There’s a reason the Sports-Reference.com family of sites was named one of Time Magazine’s 50 Best Websites for 2010. They have just about everything you’d want, sports fact and statistically speaking, and their search capabilities are always growing … well, if they only had NBA game logs that pre-dated the 1986-87 season.

Nevertheless, I recently gave an assignment to the staff of Truth About It.net, (Rashad Mobley, John Townsend, Arish Narayen and Adam McGinnis). I asked them to go to the Basketball-Reference.com database search page, come up with a creative query, and write something quick about it. I also came up with some quick example searches myself.

For instance, I went to the “Player Game Finder” and ran a simple search selecting ‘Wizards/Bullets’ as the opponent, ‘did not start’ as the role, and sorted by points. (Click here for the full results.)

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Once, when asked about what his team would look like in the coming season, whether it would be more offensively minded, and how it would keep up the intensity on the defensive end, Flip Saunders said:

Well, defensively, the team always takes the personality of their players. The players we have here … are very defensive oriented. The strength of this team from a defensive aspect – how hard they play and how aggressively they play won’t change. What will change is the changing defenses we’ll use, being able to change the tempo of the game will full-court pressure, half-court traps and defenses. Offensively, like our defense, we will always stay aggressive. I always want my teams to attack, and so we will look to push the ball more and score more out of our fast break.

And on whether he would try to evolve a player into a superstar or continue with the teamwork mentality:

In Minnesota, even though we had a great player in Garnett, the team was built on team play. I look for this team to continue that. This team will move the basketball, become a high-assist, low-turnover team playing a very aggressive style.

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[John Wall waits for his NBA debut.]

If you’re reading this, chances are sky high that you are a devout Washington Wizards fan, and you are longing for some exciting news in the month of  August.  You’ve enjoyed following JaVale McGee’s music career along with the big news that he will be playing with the USA Basketball team. You got excited when John Wall said he was coming back to DC, after spending some time in North Carolina, and it made you want to watch highlights to whet your appetite. You learned more about Yi Jianlian, you waxed nostalgic about Antawn Jamison, and you felt teased when only the preseason schedule was released.

Well my Wizards fans, long no more … the 2010-2011 schedule is here for your viewing pleasure.

But surely you didn’t think we were just going to list the schedule, and then let you navigate it all alone did you? Here at Truth About It, we are absolutely dedicated to breaking down the significant match-ups, the upcoming, compelling stories, and the must-see-TV moments that will make this 2010-2011 season one that you will not and cannot miss.  We also have nothing else to do until McGee and the rest of the USA ballers play on Thursday night.

>>Openers

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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.

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Friday night was hands down the best half of  basketball the Wizards have played all season, and a deserving treat for most Wiz fans. True, Washington winning by the skin of their teeth ultimately hurt Operation: Tank for Pick #1, a popular moment amongst big dreamers. But to think that this one game, and not cruel fate, will really affect the outcome of the Wizards’ draft lottery aspirations is being too meticulous. Taking it to a decrepit Celtics team was worth it. Below are some memorable moments from that first half, in GIF form so you can watch over and over again.

Andray Blatche puts the brakes on Big Baby

Nick Young hustles like his job is on the line

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“We choked. Six minutes to go, we’re up 13. We got young guys, they don’t know what it’s like to be in the situation. We start talking to Garnett, start talking trash and everything else. Got Garnett and those guys’ juice up and we just pissed  down our leg the last six minutes.

You have a veteran team that knows how to close out games against a young team that hasn’t been there. Instead of letting a sleeping dog lie, we just juiced up their energy. We had players coming out of timeouts, we had guys going to the wrong side of the floor. We were so discombobulated.”

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Wizards player evaluations for ‘08-09 continue, up eighth is Andray Blatche. My thoughts are below, you can check on the full report on Bullets Forever.

[Previously: Oleksiy Pecherov | Juan Dixon | Etan Thomas | Javaris Crittenton | JaVale McGee | DeShawn Stevenson | Nick Young]

flickr/wizardsdotcom

DMX’s “Here We Go Again,” is the first song that plays in my head when contemplating Andray Blatche. Of course, DMX’s career went the way of the gutter with a litany of charges, crack-induced federal agent impersonating, car-jacking attempts at JFK, and jail time. Evidently Earl Simmons is trying to find the lord now. Andray has certainly been through the fire, but people are still waiting for his first coming, much less a resurrection.

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