It sort of felt like a non-game. The Wizards, short-handed and getting shorter-handed, weren’t really there. Neither was much of a crowd at Verizon Center. And the game itself wasn’t much of a contest, not after Milwaukee’s 21-6 run over the last five minutes of the second quarter. Alas, a 95-76 defeat, evidence of status quo in Washington, where the Wizards are now 16-47 and still need three more wins in their final 19 games to avoid matching their franchise-worst 19-63 record two years ago.
Andray Blatche reinjured the same right shoulder that cost him one game in January. Wizards head coach Flip Saunders said he’s scheduled for an MRI on Wednesday.
Blatche’s early departure paved the way for the rookie quintet of John Wall, Jordan Crawford, Trevor Booker, Kevin Seraphin and Hamady Ndiaye, who, if nothing else, played hard and together for nearly four minutes even if they were ragged and sloppy and probably couldn’t have sustained it, which probably explains why the Wizards didn’t go back to the lineup again later.
“That was probably our best stint, to be honest,” said Saunders. “They played pretty well together. I thought they competed, and we had a pretty good stretch at that time. When you look at overall how we played and lack of shooting the ball, I thought they competed and did some pretty good things.”
Ndiaye was over the moon afterward, having played nearly six minutes after coming into the night with 12 minutes all year.
“It was probably one of the best moments that we had due to the fact that it was all rookies going hard,” said Ndiaye. “We didn’t have anything to lose. We just wanted to go out there and play our heart off, and that’s exactly what we did, and having each other’s back and all being out there at the same time, we kind of felt the energy that we needed and just came out there and pretty much just fought for what we wanted.”
“I didn’t even know until actually the coach said it at halftime,” said Crawford. “We just played with a lot of hustle, got back into the game. Unfortunately, with young players like us, we sometimes have slip ups so we couldn’t maintain keeping up with them, and they got out to a good lead.”
Crawford finished with a career-high 22 points but also was a team-worst -22 during his 27 minutes on the floor. Yikes. Wall (10 points, 9 rebounds, 7 assists, 5 turnovers) had a good night on the glass, but not exactly anywhere else.
“I thought what happened, he missed some shots early,” said Saunders. “He got frustrated when he missed some shots. He rebounded well for us, and did some of those other things, but I think overall, I don’t think it was one of his better performances. He’s usually bounced back pretty well, and so we’ll see.”
And there’s little to be said about JaVale McGee (9 points, 13 rebounds, 4 turnovers) and his wild, erratic, brutal matchup with Andrew Bogut (14 points, 9 rebounds, season-high 7 assists). There’s no better evidence of the Wizards spinning their wheels than watching McGee’s flailing drives to the buckets, needless goaltends and missed defensive assignments only to see him make an athletic rebound or finish a putback dunk. The plays continue to cancel themselves out, and Bogut isn’t 100 percent and hasn’t been all season.
The Wizards are young. The Wizards are banged up. The excuses are plenty, and now Saunders is taking a training camp approach to the next three days of practice before Blake Griffin and the Los Angeles Clippers come to town.
“He said all spots are open right now so I expect people to go at each other’s heads,” said Booker. “But I’m actually looking forward to it because I’m competitive, and I like to go hard.”
There’s never been any question of that with a guy like Booker, but is this what the rest of the team needs? Practice, according to Wall, is where the Wizards excel.
“It just seems like every practice we’ve had since All-Star, we’ve all competed,” said Wall. “But when we get into the game, we’re not competing and taking on challenges from other teams and other players. Coach said, deep down inside, it’s going to come to a one-on-one battle, but then you also gotta help out. We’re not helping each other like we do when we play certain teams, and it showed a great example tonight. We just beat this team the other week but a lot of points. I think they held that inside their heads and came out here and did the same to us.”
