Critique of the NBA often surrounds the narrative of one player dribbling around then shooting. But when you have a 20-year old athlete whose combination of speed and size is already superior to most at his position, you take advantage of his one-on-one skills. And when that player loves to pass and relishes in the assist while always being a threat to score, it’s called basketball. Flip Saunders is a basketball coach and he often knows exactly what to do with John Wall.

Spread sets usually seem reserved for late-clock situations, and mostly true for the instances in the video below. Still, with Wall they can be implemented at just about any point of the game, depending on his surrounding personnel and the defensive match-ups the Wizards might want to exploit, of course. This clip of four plays all occurred in two games against the Golden State Warriors and Utah Jazz on the Wizards’ late March west coast road trip, and all came with around 70 seconds or less left in a period. Let’s watch…

Earl Watson, Stephen Curry and Monta Ellis… Sure, intimidating defenders they are not. But also, this is the NBA. Not many rookies can make these moves look so easy — an attack of the rim through trees, finding Yi Jianlian for a bounce pass in the paint, throwing the perfect lob to JaVale McGee, getting to the rim through a big man, making the basket, drawing a foul, and finishing with a muscle flex.

It’s a simple game that can be made even more simple with supreme athletes. And the spread set out of which these plays were run — sometimes with a man in the far right corner (Nick Young), but mostly with the guard extended on the right wing (Jordan Crawford)… depending on the shooting comfort spots of the respective players, I suppose — certainly has some more intricate options. But I won’t blame Wall’s teammates too much for standing around to watch him operate sometimes (as long as the guards remember to cover on defense, and as long as they’re always ready to receive the pass).

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Screen shots, commentary and links…

My column last week in the DCist got delayed due to my account, so it was posted this morning for you to kindly read. It’s all about how the “Our Time” motto worked out for the Virginia Commonwealth Rams, but not so much for the Washington Wizards. And as evident by the posters above from the crowd seen on television at VCU’s big win over Kansas yesterday, it was clearly a theme that resonated from when Rams coach Shaka Smart outlined it for his team at the beginning of their season. So a big congrats goes to VCU … go check out my DCist column … and the below screen shot captures how the ticket that I purchased in Las Vegas last July (while I was out there for the NBA Summer League) for the Kansas Jayhawks to win the NCAA national title feels.

Wizards-Warriors.

So the Wizards lost again on the road last night to the Golden State Warriors, 114-104, dropping them to 17-55 on the season and 1-35 on the road. The young, depleted Washington squad did not pay enough attention to shooters (Dorrell Wright went 5-11 from three-point land and Monta Ellis went 4-6) and were out-lasted by minor mistakes and a Warriors team with many more offensive weapons. Ten of the Warriors’ 11 3-point makes were assisted upon (Golden State missed 13 threes), while Washington went 4-16 from deep with all of those long buckets coming via assists.

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[Editor's note: Ryan Gracia is majoring in sports communication and journalism at George Mason University and freelances for local sites of Patch.com. Some of his previous work for TAI can be found here and here. Below, Ryan recaps the droughts of let-down for the Wizards against the Warriors on Wednesday night.]

It’s safe to say the Wizards have been inconsistent this year. They lost at home to the Phoenix Suns by 18 points back on January 21, then bounced back the next night to pull out arguably one of the best wins of the season against the Boston Celtics (thanks to some missed shots that Celtic vets don’t miss often — but hey it was a win nonetheless). I’ll also remind you that the Wizards actually boasted a winning record at home (13-10 leading up to February), while nearing an unbelievably embarrassing feat of setting an NBA-record 30 straight losses to begin a season away from the friendly confines of the Verizon Center, going 0-25 before their first win against the Cleveland Cavaliers — who had just ended a 26-game overall losing streak of their own.

I know, that’s a lot to take in, but those inconsistencies throughout the season were on display Wednesday night against the Golden State Warriors, and it set up quite an interesting matchup against the seventh-highest scoring team in the NBA this season.

Barely three minutes into the game, the 13-4 Washington advantage showing on the jumbotron must have been shocking even to the five Wizards players walking toward the bench following a timeout. Here’s why: Flip Saunders (or Randy Wittman in the case of Wednesday night’s game) wasn’t the pissed off coach calling the timeout following a big run.

Things then went back to normal when those players stepped back on the court. The Wizards allowed Golden State to make what was supposed to be an uphill battle of coming back from nine point deficit much too easy. They turned the tide to lead 18-16 from the time Stephen Curry hit a 3-pointer 12 seconds after the timeout to the point when Curry finished the run by hitting the free throw to complete a 3-point play barely two and a half minutes later. A 13-4 run in just over three minutes to start a game is nice — very nice after knowing that the Wizards were the team that completed the feat. But a 14-3 run (scored by only two players, Curry and Dorell Wright) in two and a half minutes? Well, I’d say that more than counters the run from the Wizards. Those three Wizard points, by the way, all came from the free throw line.

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[Mr. Versatility]

During Hinrich’s introductory presser at the Verizon Center this past Monday, Chris Marks of Prince George’s Community Television asked him what position he thought would best fit him in DC.  Hinrich responded with a laugh:

Well we’re going to figure that out. I don’t know exactly.  I probably feel more comfortable playing the one, it’s a little easier.  But I feel I’m very capable of playing both positions and I think starting in training camp that’s going to be a challenge, trying to figure out exactly where I fit in and what I need to do to help the team.

This of course begs the question: Where does the Wizards’ factotum fit? (And is he a better PG than a SG?)

I headed over to 82games to find out.

The first metric I looked at was Win%, defined as the chance of winning the Chicago Bulls had with Kirk Hinrich on the floor.  During his time in Chicago, Hinrich gave the Bulls a 46.8% chance of winning.  Hinrich’s highest Win% was 60.3% in ’06-’07 and his lowest was 30.3% in his rookie season.  That number is respectable, but is a cold, indurating indicator that Hinrich is not a gamechanger.  To put this statistic in perspective, LeBron James’ career Win% is 67.8%.  (His career high is 82.7%; his low is 54.4%.)

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Prior to the Wizards-Knicks game, Rashad Mobley of Hoops Addict and myself stopped to chat with Jonathan Bender of the New York Knicks, a man on a long-shot comeback attempt. Rashad has his piece posted on Hoops Addict, mine is posted below.

Jonathan Bender broke Michael Jordan’s McDonald’s All-American game scoring record when he dropped 31 points in the 1999 game, besting his Airness by one point.

That performance was on the stage Bender needed to forgo his verbal commitment to Mississippi State University and enter the NBA draft, becoming who I believe is the first modern-day high school player to jump to the NBA after actually committing to a school. They say Kobe Bryant would have gone to Duke, but he never offered his commitment. Today, despite being called one of the 20 biggest busts in modern NBA draft history by Sports Illustrated in 2005, Bender doesn’t think twice about the choice he made over 10 years ago to follow in the prep-to-pros footsteps of those such as Kevin Garnett.

“Once I made the decision, it was made,” Bender said without hesitation from the Knicks locker room before last Saturday’s match-up against the Wizards.

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[Editor's Note: Andy Orfalea is a Wizards fan all the way out in California, but attended school back East where he majored in English at Boston College. He attended Friday night's Wizards game in Golden State, his account is below.]

I knew it. I knew the Wizards just needed my presence to turn this thing around. Watching from the top level at the Oracle, I didn’t like what I saw upon entering. Andray Blatche was f&%$ing around in warmups, something I’ve noticed about him since he was drafted. Javale Mcgee was chucking the bull off the backboard, Gilbert was throwing up brick after brick. As usual, the only two Wizards who appeared aware of their current six game losing streak were Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler. After Blatche botched a left hander in lay-up lines, Caron walked up and smacked him in the head. The leaders of the team won this game tonight. After the opening tip, the team played hard and with a sense of urgency. Two things that are all they really need.

Playing hard is something I attribute to one big man in the middle. Brendan Haywood has amazingly worked himself into a position where I was actually calling for him at the end of the game. Blatche was playing down the stretch and when the Warriors cut it to three, Flip finally decided this was an important game and inserted Haywood. B-Hay, the most recent blogosphere victim, provided much needed inside toughness for the Wizards. Almost before the fireworks of others, I really have to give him his props.

Now, an important point in recapping the game. Let me describe a little scene after the game in the halls of the Oracle. I walked out of our section with my Caron Butler Wizards #3 jersey, clapping it up. I also had my Redskins hat on, keep in mind they somehow beat the Raiders on Sunday. Anyways, as I clapped it up a Warriors fan said, “Hey man you got a lot of nerve wearing all that Washington sh*t.” I didn’t say anything back because I was so joyed over the victory, but it did pop into my mind to say “Hey man, you have a lot of nerve wearing that Warriors gear because that’s one of the worst teams I’ve ever seen play.”

One perspective that needs to be provided to fans who didn’t watch this game, I’ve never seen more inept defensive ball club than the Golden State Warriors. Gilbert tip-toed his way to 43 and 13. He had to do nothing more than beat his initial man and it was over, honestly. All other men in yellow just gaped at the defender who got beat, not thinking once about helping, fouling or really doing anything. I imagine Don Nelson holds team meetings with a bottle of gin and a loaded gun. When a team member raises his hand and asks about defense, Nelson picks up the loaded gun, gets a crazy look in his eye and says “back to the offense now…”

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Time for a win folks. I’ll be on ESPN’s Daily Dime Live around game time to discuss. Got a good feeling about this one.

The Wizards don’t want to be number one with seven

If the Wiz lose by four points or less again, they’ll surpass the 76-77 Suns with the most consecutive losses within that margin. The spread is Golden State by 2.5.

The Suns’ first loss in their streak came against the Cleveland Cavaliers on February 19th, 1977. Their seventh game on March 4th came, ironically enough, against the Warriors. The Suns didn’t lose to Golden State by four or less, they lost to them by five, 101-87. In fact, the Suns ended up losing 12 total before winning again.

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