Wizards face a tough road

Al Thornton wasn’t a member of the Washington Wizards when snow-mageddon postponed the Atlanta Hawks’ originally scheduled visit Feb. 6. But he isn’t shying away from the gantlet the rescheduled game has created for the Wizards, a stretch coach Flip Saunders deemed “the rock star tour.”

Beginning with the Hawks (40-23), the Wizards (21-40) will play three consecutive nights. They then have one travel day before a four-game swing against Western Conference playoff teams that begins with a back-to-back set at Utah and Denver and ends at the defending NBA-champion Los Angeles Lakers.

“We should embrace it,” Thornton said. “We need to get better.”

Yet the Wizards seem to be getting worse. They have lost four games in a row and six of their last seven. With frustration mounting, their attempts at jump-starting a flagging offense have looked more and more disjointed.

For example, the Wizards have been desperate to take advantage of shooting guard Mike Miller’s better than 50 percent shooting from the floor, and he took five shots in the first quarter against Houston on Tuesday. But after missing three, Miller attempted only four more shots the rest of the way.

“I think the couple home games there hasn’t been the togetherness, that chemistry, on both ends, in terms of just helping each other,” Thornton said. “I think when we first got here [after the trades], we were playing with intensity, playing together. We was playing winning basketball, and we kind of have got away from that a little bit.”

The search for a spark is expected to extend to the furthest reaches of the roster over the next week and half.

“This many games in that many days, it’s going to give guys a real sniff of the NBA because some guys haven’t played that much,” forward James Singleton said. “This is going to let them know because every game is against a strong team.”

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