Struggling Washington looks for answers tonight
The themes of the Wizards’ lost season have become all too familiar. The most persistent and frustrating for the last place team in the Eastern Conference? Its inability to close.
The Wizards (7-29) have lost 11 games that they led in the fourth quarter, another that was tied, and 10 more in which they had whittled the deficit to five or fewer points.
On the flip side, they’ve won three times after trailing in the fourth quarter, once after the score was tied, and once after their lead had been sliced to four.
Add it all up and it’s a 5-22 record in winnable games. That’s supposed to happen to inexperienced teams such as Oklahoma City (6-32), which has lost 11 times when it has led or tied in the fourth quarter. But not to a team with two All-Stars, offensive options on either side of the floor in Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison.
“You’ve got to weather through it,” said Butler. “Bad weather right now.”
The loss of perhaps the most clutch player in franchise history, Gilbert Arenas, has undoubtedly hurt. But he also was unavailable most of last season when the team performed well, winning 10 games in which it trailed going into the fourth quarter and losing only five when it led.
If there has been a constant in the Wizards’ fourth quarter failures, it’s been lack of defense. Without an inside presence such as 7-footer Brendan Haywood — out this year with a wrist injury — teams have had free reign to drive the lane.
Washington has also been hampered by the lack of a stopper on the perimeter. DeShawn Stevenson dealt with go-to players ranging from 6-foot Chris Paul to 7-foot Dirk Nowitzki last year, but this season was slowed by knee and back injuries before a disc problem forced him to the sidelines.
Defense was a major culprit in the Wizards 92-89 loss to Charlotte Saturday night. The Bobcats trailed by five points with five minutes left, but scored 11 points on their next five possessions to turn the deficit into a five-point lead.
“You have to get stops,” said Wizards interim coach Ed Tapscott. “We were in control [and] we ceded that back. We shouldn’t have been in that position where those [final] shots were so critical. We can only blame ourselves for that.”
