I went to the Verizon Center last night to watch the Washington take on New Orleans, a team who beat Boston a day earlier on the front end of a back-to-back road game sequence. The Hornets used their bench quite a bit in the first half, and the Wizards were able to take advantage. Facing the likes of a Marcus Thornton - Jarrett Jack - Willie Green - Jason Smith - Aaron Gray lineup to start the 2nd quarter, Washington was able to turn a 24-23 deficit into a 43-30 advantage. From that point until the end of the game, the Wiz clung pretty tightly to Murphy's Law. It all went wrong.
Surprisingly, the Wizards had not fallen behind earlier. John Wall committed two fouls in the first two minutes of the game, and with Kirk Hinrich in civvies (and rather nice ones, too), Flip Saunders went to Lester Hudson off the bench. Hudson certainly did not amaze anyone, but given that he drew the assignment of extended minutes against the league's most dynamic point guard, he managed reasonably well -- as evidenced by the 24-23 score after one quarter. The collapse would only come later, and from a different cast of characters.
The collapse of the Wizards was twofold. One component was sloppiness with the ball, particularly by John Wall. He had 10 assists (in the first night of actual posting of letters for the Great Wall of Assists), but also eight turnovers. When the Wizards tried in vain to mount a late charge, Washington was their own worst enemy, often not getting the ball past half-court before relenting to a New Orleans steal. Chris Paul and Trevor Ariza applied fierce ball pressure, combining for an astounding 15 steals.
The other substantial flaw was the Wizards' near-total lack of defending penetration, primarily on the pick-and-roll. Paul was able to get into the paint at will. He's a great player, and his tremendous ability makes it difficult to deny his offense. But the Wizards have two big problems in this area. First, they never forced him to his left. He often gives a quick right-left fake, and then comes back for real to his strong right hand. Washington repeatedly let him get to his right hand on the same move. Sure, he is great, and the fakes happen with machine gun speed in 0.03 seconds, but good defenders can shade to the strong side and take it away. The other problem is the lack of footwork by the Wizard big men on the pick-and-roll, Blatche in particular. He was a -25 for the game in +/- rating. His ineptitude is detailed with photos on this page. If he cannot improve dramatically on defense, Flip Saunders should start to look elsewhere.
The Wizards scored 81 points at home and lost by double-digits to a team with tired legs, so it is not easy to end on a positive note. But the Wizards started the game well, and during the pregame introductions they shared a genuine camaraderie. The players locked arms in a circle and moved side-to-side in a motion that made the whole entity resemble an amorphous swamp beast. As each starter was introduced, the remaining players "spat out" the named player, with the players on the end of the beast scooping up the starter from behind and launching them onto the court. A nice photo of the result is here.
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