You mean, play basketball?
What did we learn at Wizards practice yesterday before the Javaris Crittenton plea took over the day? Good thing you asked.
Mike Miller
On facing the Lakers: “We’re going to have to play better than we have the last couple of games. It’ll be a fun challenge, that’s for sure.
You gotta clog up the middle they got big guys down there. You gotta make them work inside and obviously, you have to slow down Kobe [Bryant], which is a lot easier said than done. They got a lot of weapons. Ron [Artest] can score as well. They got a lot of weapons out there. Youjust got to buckle down and hold them to one shot as much as you can.”
On his playing time and health: “I think we’re upping it a little bit, and I feel comfortable so we’ll see if we go more or they hold me back.”
On his getting more aggressive: “It’s based on the way the game is going. We were struggling to score there so I was trying to be a little more aggressive so I’m going to pick my spots. We also got to have ball movement. Our ball movement has been real stagnant the last couple of games, and I’ve been trying to get it popping. Believe me, I’d like to shoot more. But sometimes it’s not your job.”
On making Bryant into a volume scorer: “It’s how you want to play all the playmakers. The Dwyane Wades, the Dirk Nowitzkis, the LeBron Jameses, you want to make them volume guys. But when you play 82 games, and he’s playing with a broken finger, you can expect his field goal percentage is going to be up and down. He’s got to work for every shot he gets. He goes against double teams. He’s a great basketball player, one of the best. We got to make him work for everything, keep him off the foul like as much as possible.”
Brendan Haywood
On getting up for the game, given the Wizards have played well at home against Cleveland, Boston and Orlando: “If you can’t get up for the world champs, who are you going to get up for? They’re the defending champions. They play a good brand of basketball, and we know if we don’t come out and match their intensity, it can get ugly quick.”
On what the Wizards need to do: “If we move the ball, it’ll be a different ball game no matter who we’re playing. When we move the ball, we’re at our best so moving the ball is key, especially when you have those big guys up front because big men don’t really want to move like that. We want to stay in one area and try to patrol the paint and guard our area. But when you get guys involved in numerous screen and rolls, the ball moves from one side of the court to the other, that’s when you have success against a team that talented.
On Bryant’s recent struggles (shooting 35.7 percent in his last four games): “Kobe is so talented, man, he finds a way to get it done regardless,” Haywood said. “he might have a broken hand. He might shoot a bad percentage a game here, a game there, but he always rights the ship and finds a way to get it done. We just have to find a way to get it done playing good position defense, if he hits shots, he hits shots, but we can’t let him get down the lane, getting easy layups, getting fouled, finding [Andrew] Bynum and [Pau] Gasol for easy dunks.”
On instituting his Wizards Man Law on not settling for jump shots: “I hope we do. At some point, common sense has to kick in — ball movement is key and long, contested three-pointers are probably not a good thing.”
Wizards head coach Flip Saunders
“We’ve got some guys that are worn down right now. The biggest thing is that we hope in the next 30 hours, we can get our bodies rejuvenated to be able to have a esprit de corps, to go out there and perform at a high level because that’s what you have to do with them, to play with good energy,a greater amount of energy than we played with [Sunday] afternoon. We’re going to have to make some shots. The thing that is misled about the lakers with all the showtiem and everytyhing they play, they’re leading the league is field goal percentage defense. They’re defense goes very underrated.”
On what he can do at this point in the season and what is most frustating for him as a coach: “Sometimes we’re still inconsistent with the core things you want to get through to your players. All you can do is You just to have to keep on trying to work harder, try to find different ways to get them to understand, whether it’s through film, whether it’s through scouting reports or through sitdowns, whether it’s through doing more game-type situations. Just tyring to do different things to try to stimulate them. As a coach, you can frustrated, but it’s even more of a challenge but it’s even more of a challenge to try to get htem to play how you think you have to play.”
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