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.”

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[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]

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Here we go again… Tonight’s Wizards-Raptors game is the third of four meetings between the two clubs. Washington and Toronto have split the 2011-12 series thus far, each team celebrating a decisive victory over the other — the average winning margin is 16 points. Although the Torontonians have been more successful on the road (5 wins) than the D.C. locals have been at home (3 wins) this season, the Raptors haven’t won a game at the Verizon Center since 2009. Consider heading to the game if you have a couple of hours to kill tonight: tickets can be scored for a buck! Raptorholic Sam Holako (@RapsFan) of ESPN TrueHoop/Raptors Republic joins TAI’s John Converse Townsend (@JohnCTownsend) and Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It) for tonight’s 3-on-3 roundball roundtable. Three questions, three answers starts now…

#1) Fact or Fiction: Rashard Lewis will score four or more points tonight, joining Jason Kidd and Paul Pierce as the only players in NBA history to have scored at least 15,000 points, grabbed 5,000 rebounds and hit 1,500 three-pointers in their careers. [UPDATE: Lewis is out versus the Raptors due to what is being called a sore right knee; Chris Singleton replaced him in the Wizards starting lineup.]

HOLAKO: Fact. If Rashard can’t score 4 points against the Raptors, then he probably doesn’t deserve to be in that company. On a side note, I was hoping Lewis had more gas in the tank after the ‘steroid’ incident. I’m a big fan of his; undeserved massive contract not withstanding.

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[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]

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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.

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[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]

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The Washington Wizards talk about fourth quarter full-court pressure defense against Chicago, which helped make the 10 point loss a little more interesting, to say the least…

If anything, Randy Wittman has proven that he’s no Flip Saunders, past his own claims of the two being “polar opposites.” No, it’s not about wins and losses (beating the Bobcats twice? please), at least for the rest of this season. Yes, outcome is important and positive outcomes are nice, but ask a fan about winning or losing, and the Wizards can’t win. From moral victories to lottery losses to scoreboard reward, not many can be satisfied in this current state of four victories and 17 losses.

Wittman is willing to try more new things, starting Jan Vesely at the four over Andray Blatche for example. Or, down 78-63 to the Chicago Bulls on Monday night with nearly a quarter left to play, throwing a full court press after a Chicago timeout allowing Tom Thibodeau to insert M.V.P. point guard Derrick Rose back into the game. It’s not like Saunders didn’t reach deep into his bag of gimmicks, responsiveness from his players was clearly the issue.

“I was a little hesitant to really do what we did there in the fourth quarter,” said coach Randy Wittman at the end of the night, “because… [chuckles]… we hadn’t worked on it, but I said, ‘Let’s go, guys, we got one chance here to make this a ball game.’”

Washington responded immediately — with a unit of John Wall, Jordan Crawford, Nick Young, Trevor Booker, and JaVale McGee – racing to a 15-8 run in fewer than four minutes. Thanks to the pressure, the Wizards trimmed their deficit to eight points. A Nick Young three-pointer capped the comeback, with Wittman afterward stomping his feet all over the hardwood floor to remind Young to not bask in his offense, but rather to find the shooters and pressure as necessary. Chicago answered by finally breaking Washington’s full-court defense with ease, ending the Wizards run with a Carlos Boozer dunk, holding their lead at 88-78.

“Our point guards Shelvin [Mack] and John are picking up 84, 94 feet… Book [Booker] has to ability to really cover a lot of ground, and I thought he did a heckuva job of trying to get the ball out of Rose’s hands early, make [Joakim] Noah and those guys make a play,” said Wittman. “JaVale… there’s a little technique being the last man standing back there with what you have to do. You know… he didn’t know. We haven’t been able to work on it. He came away from the basket a little bit too much — a couple drop-offs to [Carlos] Boozer where you got to make Noah, the 7-foot center, make plays driving down the middle of the floor.”

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[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]

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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.”

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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.

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[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 20 contributors: Adam McGinnis, Rashad Mobley and Kyle Weidie.]

Score

Washington Wizards 102 at Charlotte Bobcats 99 [box score]

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At every buzzer, there are key points you can look back on when considering the outcome — a game-changing instance, a slept-on moment, an initial reaction to the final score. Sure, in a contest of ebbs and flows, moments can be subjective, but it doesn’t make it any one less important than others. In a Wizards 94-100 loss against the Boston Celtics on Sunday afternoon, these were some of those moments…

RASHAD MOBLEY:

On the surface, there is plenty to be encouraged about if you’re affiliated with the Washington Wizards. For the fifth consecutive game, they gave a strong team effort. John Wall continues to play aggressive but smart, JaVale McGee shows flashes of being a dominant post player, Nick Young continues a trend of giving a half of dazzling basketball, and Jordan Crawford is taking fewer bad shots. All these factors are keeping the Wizards close enough to win, until they inevitably fall short.

But that’s as much praise as I can heap on this team, because this was a game they HAD to have. Rajon Rondo was a late scratch and Ray Allen had to leave early with a jammed ankle. That meant that it was up to Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce (69 combined years on this earth) to lead the way against the athletic Wizards. Washington just needed three good performances. Wall obliged for as long as he could, but he, along with Jordan Crawford, fell victim to hero ball late, and no one else could pick up the slack. Pierce picked up the slack for Boston and then some, and the Celtics won a game they really had no business winning.  With a mere loss, the Wizards reaffirmed that they are indeed the worst team in the league and fell to 2-14. 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 14 contributors: Kyle Weidie and John Converse Townsend with first-hand coverage, and Sam Permutt watching from afar.]

Score

Washington Wizards 105 vs. Oklahoma City Thunder 102 [box score]

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[A pic of Wizards rookie Chris Singleton, a check-in on DC Council 3-star ratings to-date, and shared bullet links from the web.]

Thirteen games are in the books, just under 20-percent of the 66-game season, and the Washington Wizards have a 1-12 record to show for it. For each excruciating contest, the gang at Truth About It.net has produced D.C. Council posts, where a combination of three contributors each rate all five starters, the coach and the bench unit on a 3-star scale. Each contributor also nominates a sub of the game. With a fifth gulped down, it’s time to check how the star ratings add up so far (running season totals can be found here).

Eight different Wizards have been in the starting lineup this season. Starters are ranked by average stars per start (out of three), and include number of starts, games, best start (out of nine stars from three contributor totals), and worst start. Coach and bench totals are also included.

[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 13 contributors: Adam McGinnis and John Converse Townsend with first-hand coverage and Kyle Weidie from watching on T.V.]

Score

Washington Wizards 106 vs. Houston Rockets 114 [box score]

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