Could Wizards head coach Flip Saunders be accused of looking past the hottest team in the NBA, which will visit Verizon Center tomorrow night? Possibly.
“I think we have to worry more about what we’re going to do, try to get better defensively and in some of the things we do offensively,” said Saunders. “I think the biggest adjustment we’ve had as a team, and you can say system-wise or whatever, has been that they’ve gone from a team that never really sets screens – when you run a Princeton offense — to now you have to set screens. Most teams in the league, you set screens because you get wood on people, and what you do is you wear them out, and it’s the easiest way to get open shots for people. What we’ve done the last couple days is just the basics of back when you’re in junior high, you learn how to set a screen…
“For us,” he continued, “It’s not a matter of one game, what we do with Boston, it’s a matter of what we do here over the next couple of weeks, through December and being able to get better in December, close out December. Twenty games, after tomorrow, are pretty much going to be behind us. You are what you are. We’ve lost some close games which are extremely disappointing but you can’t get them back so you better make up for them.”
Nice. As soon as Washington gets a couple days between game, that means it’s time to get reflective. Saunders was asked where he expected the Wizards to be at this point in the season.
“We’re better defensively than I thought we would be, our field goal percentage and those things,” said Saunders. “We’re better rebounding wise… I didn’t think the problem would be turning the ball over and scoring points. I didn’t think that would be a problem, no matter what. The other thing is just being consistent and having closer-type players. I thought that we’d be able to do a better job taking care of the ball, especially in late-game situations, with those guys. We haven’t done that to this point.”
And so we arrive once again at mysterious Agent Zero’s door: “I found out one thing on Gil [Arenas],” said Saudners, “He gets very much focused on one thing, and it’s tough to get him off that. He came in this season, probably because he heard so much about how he played in the past, and I’ve had talks with him every other day, ‘I’m going to get assists,’ and you can’t go into a game thinking you’re going to get assists. They just happen. That’s like a quarterback, ‘I’m going to throw touchdown passes.’ What happens when you’re trying to hit home runs, you strike out, and when you try to throw touchdown passes, you throw interceptions. That’s one of the reasons right now, that he’s probably leading the league in turnovers because he’s trying to jam a square peg into a round hole at times. But that’ll come in time. As I told him, we have to have more of a sense of urgency.”
I followed up with a question about Saunders looking for signs that Arenas is finding his way back in practice: “You want to because a lot of times in practice, he’ll do things, and he’s has times where his body is tight and so he can’t do as much maybe in a practice as he can in a game. So what happens as a team is you play different in practice, then all of a sudden, he gets in front of a crowd, and you play totally different in a game. That’s where I think we’ve had a lack of consistency because we’re not used to playing in games how we play in practice. What’s going to happen is the longer we get into it, his body will keep on adjusting and he’ll get better.”
“I’ve told you 8,000 times, we talk about our formula for success is really easy,” said Saunders. “Don’t turn the ball over. If we have more assists than turnovers, we have a great chance of winning. Get off to good starts in the first quarter and if we rebound and defend and do some little things.”
The last part could probably qualify as a game plan for the Celtics.
“You can’t look past one opponent, especially an opponent like Boston,” said Brendan Haywood, who is surprised his team is 7-12. He thought they would be 12-7, or better. “We’ve lost two in a row, and we really need this one.”
Add Pick & Roll to your RSS: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/sports/blogs/pick-and-roll/index.rss
Follow me on Twitter @craigstouffer
