Somewhat lost in last weekend’s season debut for Gilbert Arenas both home and way was the first professional set of back-to-back games for John Wall.
After first getting roughed up under the heavy Manhattan spotlight on the road against the New York Knicks on Friday, Wall immediately returned to Washington for his most understated performance of the season so far – even if it did include him racing from one end of the court to the other in 2.1 seconds for a bucket that would’ve counted if he’d just released the ball for a layup instead of dunking it.
After his first three games, Wall averaged 23.7 points, 10.3 assists and 4.0 turnovers. The last two: 13.0 points, 8.5 assists, 7.5 turnovers.
So with a three day break between games to both rest and heal a bit more his twisted ankle last week, what’s to expect from the rookie point guard against Houston?
“I think he was a little bit tired,” said Wizards head coach Flip Saunders. “In looking at the [Cleveland] game, he didn’t have the same juice. It’s a learning process, too, with him, and also because he had tweaked his ankle, he had limited practice time. I think we’ve come to know, with him especially, he’s not at the point where he can with an injury or whatever, he needs practice. Young players need practice to regroup and work on the things that they didn’t do well. What happens is that when you play bad, and you don’t have any practice in between, then all of a sudden it’s like the game before, just a carryover to the next game.”
More than his scoring or assists, Wall’s speed has been his most identifiable trait thus far, but against both the Cavaliers and the Knicks, it got him into trouble.
“He’s also got to learn to be under control,” said Saunders. “Sometimes his speed has gotten him into situations where he’s had turnovers because they’ve either come and trapped him in that situation and he hasn’t been able to quite stop, or he’s tried to jam a pass through and maybe it wasn’t the right situation. That’s part of his learning process, to know when he can use the speed that he has but also be in a situation to slow it down and run a team and be more set-up at times.”
At first glance, it might seem that Wall would get a run against second-tier guys for Houston since starting point guard Aaron Brooks is out for at least a month with an ankle injury. But both Kyle Lowry (5.0 points, 3.0 assists) and rookie Ish Smith (5.0 points, 3.8 assists) have been consistent and effective for the Rockets (1-5), who are better than their record, given that the Los Angeles Lakers (8-0), New Orleans Hornets (7-0), San Antonio Spurs (5-1) and Denver Nuggets (4-4) are among the teams they’ve had to play in the early going.
However, Saunders said he and his staff have talked about trying to stay more focused on their own guys rather than trying to worry too much about what Houston is doing.
“It’s imperative that we take care of the ball offensively, and we move the ball and make easy plays, and then defensively opportunities for layups that they might have a take away point passes, points in the paint, just overall get better at defending,” said Saunders. “Right now, our defense has been hurt somewhat because our offense. When you turn the ball over 19, 20 times, you just give too many open floor opportunities, but you also give confidence because they’re scoring in the open the floor and they have confidence when they get into their half-court set.”
