Wizards go rookie-heavy in blowout loss
The “Fab Five” they were not. “Flip’s Future Five … For Now” might’ve been a more appropriate moniker.
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With 36.6 seconds left in the first quarter against the Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday, five Wizards rookies found themselves on the floor together at one time: John Wall, Jordan Crawford, Trevor Booker, Kevin Seraphin and Hamady Ndiaye. While they didn’t take the nation by storm as a quintet of Michigan freshmen did in Ann Arbor 20 years ago — Wall might be the only one in the Wizards’ starting five for years to come — they played hard in their nearly four minutes as a unit and provided the lone positive in an otherwise lackluster 95-76 blowout loss to Milwaukee.
“I think that was probably one of the bright spots of the night,” Booker said. “We did a decent job of holding our own.”
With small forwards Rashard Lewis (right knee), Josh Howard (left hamstring) and Cartier Martin (right patella tendonitis) unavailable, Wizards coach Flip Saunders said before the game he might go with five rookies at once. When Andray Blatche left just four minutes into the game with a right shoulder sprain after falling hard to the floor when trapped by a pair of Milwaukee defenders, the rookie quintet was a certainty.
Conveniently, the Wizards (16-47) have touted player development as a key theme over the final quarter of the season, and Crawford paced Washington with a career-high 22 points. Wall contributed 10 points, seven assists and nine rebounds, but he also had five turnovers. Milwaukee’s more seasoned backcourt pairing of Brandon Jennings (23 points, four assists) and John Salmons (22 points, five rebounds, five assists) was far superior.
“I was most disappointed that we really didn’t accept the challenge in the backcourt overall defensively,” Saunders said. “At some point, you need help in everything else. But at some point, you have to get after it. Part of the growing process of being a young player and taking that next step is being able to dig your feet in and go after somebody.”
The 76 points equaled Washington’s lowest output of the year.
JaVale McGee’s nine points, 13 rebounds and four turnovers in his matchup with Andrew Bogut (12 points, nine rebounds, seven assists) personified a wild and sloppy night for the Wizards, who committed 22 turnovers, three short of their season high.
Crawford’s highlight-reel reverse layup tied the game 30-30 with 5:30 left in the first half, but from there it was downhill. While the Wizards were busy shuffling personnel — it was the first occurrence of five rookies playing together in the NBA this season — the Bucks ran off a 21-6 stretch to take a 51-36 lead into halftime. The run was punctuated by Jennings nailing a 3-pointer off the backboard just before the second quarter buzzer.
Jennings hit two more 3s in the third quarter as the Bucks (24-38) took a 75-52 lead into the final period.
