Posts tagged ‘toney douglas’

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.

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When Washington and Toronto matched-up in Canada last Friday night, Amir Johnson of the Raptors came off the bench to score 18 points and grab 13 rebounds in a 106-89 win over the Wizards. ”They’re making him look like an All-Star,” someone probably said, also noting that this Washington franchise has seemed peculiarly deft doing so over the years. During my time following the team since 1990, nights like Johnson’s certainly don’t seem like an anomaly. But just how good is Washington at making otherwise mediocre opponents look like All-Stars? And how does Washington compare to other teams?

I used the glorious Basketball-Reference.com database to search for answers. First I needed to set up some requirements:

1. Since Johnson is the subject, I wanted someone who has scored at least 18 points and grabbed 10 rebounds off the bench. Certainly a guard could look like an All-Star with 17 points and 8 assists off the bench, as would a non-starter scoring 25 points in a reserve role (ignoring other stats), but I eliminated them for this particular exercise. Also, you could certainly have a no-name starter put up All-Star stats, but assuming he’s starting with other quality talent, his success is somewhat dimmed. A bench player it is.
2. The player’s team has to win the game. Because All-Stars, or at least All-Star efforts, always are victorious, right? (No, not right, but just another factor of elimination for this post.)

Basketball-Reference.com returned 662 instances of a player tallying at least 18 and 10 off the bench, in a win, since 1985-86, the extent of BBR’s dataset (this includes Johnson’s 18 and 13, by the way). However, the results needed to be narrowed down further: Read more »

This fan, or maybe he’s not a fan, aided by his lower-level seats near the Wizards’ locker room tunnel, took the necessary steps to make himself noticed at the Wiz-Knicks snow game on Saturday night.

Some might have approached this guy to take stock of what angle he was playing with his customized jersey. Was he simply stating the fact of Arenas’ plea? Is wearing the jersey of a guilty man an act of defiance? What does the bottom treatment a la Fred Flintstone’s moo-moo signify? Is he or is he not an advocate for Gilbert Arenas? All good questions. I’d like to think that the distinguished Dan Steinberg would have sought this fellow out for blog fodder. Me? I figured that whatever this guy’s jersey meant, it was best left unknown, like the Arenas situation itself.

Furthermore, scenes from pre-game warm-ups …

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