Seven third quarter Gilbert Arenas turnovers led to eight Dwyane Wade points on five total shots … evidently Arenas said wasn’t getting calls from the refs, or something like that.

Arenas also said:

“I’m always upset when I have turnovers. I’d rather just shoot the ball and get the attempts than get the turnovers.”

Arenas’ 12 total turnovers for the game broke a franchise record that has stood for over 20 years (regular season or playoffs, on either participating team).

Bob Dandridge committed 11 turnovers against the Golden State Warriors (Arenas’ first team) on February 7, 1978 … which also happens to be Juwan Howard’s birthday.

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Success of the Wizards is contingent upon the court leadership of Gilbert Arenas. This is not a ground-breaking concept. Despite looking “back” in Dallas, he’s still rusty, and he and the team have a good deal of the development “process” to go.

Nothing could have more exemplified this than the first quarter in Atlanta. As I wrote in the previous game post, Arenas had eight points, one turnover in the game’s first 6:20 and one point, five turnovers in the remainder of the first half. When the offense started to get sloppy, Arenas did not exert control on this situation to calm his team down.

Mike Prada did a good job of breaking this down on Bullets Forever:

A large part of the problem was that Arenas was breaking a lot of plays to drive to the basket.  Yes, it’s true that you want Arenas to be aggressive, in particular because it would wear down Joe Johnson.  However, that has to come more in the flow of the offense than it did tonight.  Arenas kept calling his own number instead of letting the offense run itself and then dumping the ball to another scorer.  The rest of the players were often not prepared for Arenas’ decisions and didn’t get in position to defend in transition.

The strive to achieve more balance is new to Arenas. It’s gonna take some time. All Wizards fans can do is have faith that the experience of Flip Saunders will work to correct these issues and the desire of Arenas to be a better player will make him wholly receptive to the process.

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{Game Faces}

A focused pre-game Gilbert Arenas.

A plotting, thinking Flip Saunders.

Contrasting bench facial expressions.

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Overall, I was impressed by the Wizards’ performance in Philadelphia on Tuesday night (aside from the ending), especially in response to Flip Saunders openly calling the team out on a disappointing performance in Atlanta on Monday. But …

The Wizards need to improve on defense, right? From watching Tuesday’s game, I was able to make some observations on focus and technique in areas where some individuals can stand to improve. I’ve illustrated these observation in screen shots below.

Caron Butler’s on Defensive Focus

Caron wants to be a better defender? Well, there are some simple things he could be doing that he’s not doing. Let’s illustrate … Read more »

Last night’s 90-89 win against the Sixers in Philly got a bit goofy toward the end. After the game, Flip Saunders said, “That’s what they call a learning experience,” which sort of means, ‘We better not pull any of that B.S. during a regular season game.’

What exactly did Flip see? Well, let’s start with JaVale McGee.

One thing JaVale McGee CAN’T do is finger-roll

I almost knew it was going to happen when I saw McGee snag a loose ball with a tie game, around 16 seconds left, and an open court with only one man to beat.

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The Wizards were out of the game before it even started, and I really wish I had bet online. They came out lacking a ton of focus and turning the ball over….key ingredients to a disaster pie.

Cleveland was also aware of everything the Wiz wanted to do offensively before they did it. Javaris Crittenton would come down the court tapping his chin and Mo Williams would do the same. Guess the “intricate” offense (simplified for the youth, I know) of Ed Tapscott and Wes Unseld, Jr. won’t fool many.

To make matters worse, Washington was always a second behind on open passes, a telltale sign of the team going through the motions….a “we got this team in DC, so who cares about Cleveland?” type attitude.

Not to belittle the effort of some individuals, but as a team, it sucked a big one last night….what’s new? The game was no where close to the final 12 point margin.

Enjoy the screen shots. Read more »

I really don’t care for Reggie Miller…..the television commentator. I certainly appreciated Reggie when he took down the hated Knicks with playoff heroics, once giving ol’ Spike Lee the choke sign, telling him to shut the eff up.

But Reggie on TV is just a spiraling, gangly, screeching, whiny sac of hot mess, and he’s often wrong too (well, maybe not often, but surely much more than should be allowed for someone in his position).

Reggie is no Mark Jackson, Doug Collins, Hubie Brown, or even his sister, Cheryl Miller, who is much, much better at her job.

I’ve heard some refer to Reggie as a “turd” and a “weenie bag”…and that’s just the censored opinion of the one person audience who is the tenant of my apartment.

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The Memphis-Washington game was a couple days ago, but these outsourced screen shots just came in on the plane from Bangalore.

But then he ordered a Five Dollar Footlong and got comfortable.

Rumors of Gilbert Arenas’ possible presence spread
along Beale Street and the masses gathered.

The Wizards moved the ball well in the beginning, but the defense gave Ed Tapscott heartburn, the throw-up feeling, and the ‘it hurts when I swallow’ throat.

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