"A Truly Mindless Game"

Sam Smith of Bulls.com was a recent witness to a Chicago style beat-down of the Wizards. His review of the Wiz, not too favorable, even with golden-boy rookie John Wall.

Thibodeau after the game was explaining how basically all teams would win the championship if not for injuries. So he began to mention the Wizards players, the guys, of course, who have a 1-28 road record. Hinrich was traded to the Hawks five days ago and already has more road wins there than he had with the Wizards had all season. 

“Wall is terrific,” Thibodeau waxed enthusiastically. “(Nick) Young is terrific, “(Andray) Blatche is, er, certainly an established player.” 

That’s right. Even Thibodeau couldn’t get himself to sell Blatche. 

The Wizards play a truly mindless game. Wall runs down like a sprinter shot out of the blocks and tries to throw lob passes when he could get an easy layup. Blatche is a seven footer with athletic advantages who spends most of his time taking difficult, baseline fallaways. The Bulls had a 48-22 edge in points in the paint, which told you where the teams were scoring from. Young never met a shot he wouldn’t take.

JaVale McGee jumps at everything, and does get to a few balls, but all you have to do is roll to the basket and it’s layup after dunk.

That’s what Noah did early as he followed misses, some of which McGee caused, though there never was anyone to back cover for him. The Bulls had a 22-4 lead in second chance points. Nice efforts there from Washington.

McGee also mostly likes to block shots. So Noah took off after misses and beat him down court by five steps after a Young miss and got a lob dunk from Rose to make it 10-4 in a game which the Wizards led for a total of… never.

The next aggressive defensive contest you see from a Washington player may be the first.

This was no contest against Wall, not that Rose looks at these matchups like that much. Wall, frankly, was a disappointment to watch. He plays wild, way out of control as if he’s on some AAU tryout to play for John Calipari. His defense is ridiculously poor and you can watch for a quarter and forget he played. His assist numbers are high, but they aren’t assists that make it easier for players. The Wizards play a lot of one-on-one isolation with jump shots and the NBA has become very generous in assist scoring. The league finally did take one from Rondo’s hugely inflated numbers when someone sent in tape of a pass he made to a teammate who then passed to another for the basket and Rondo got the assist. Wall just hands the ball to guys and if they happen to make a shot, and Young will make his share, he gets assists. Wall had nine points on three of 14 shooting and 10 assists.

I suppose he’ll be good because everyone says so, but I haven’t seen it yet. 

The Wizards play a truly mindless game. Wall runs down like a sprinter shot out of the blocks and tries to throw lob passes when he could get an easy layup. Blatche is a seven footer with athletic advantages who spends most of his time taking difficult, baseline fallaways. The Bulls had a 48-22 edge in points in the paint, which told you where the teams were scoring from. Young never met a shot he wouldn’t take.

JaVale McGee jumps at everything, and does get to a few balls, but all you have to do is roll to the basket and it’s layup after dunk.

That’s what Noah did early as he followed misses, some of which McGee caused, though there never was anyone to back cover for him. The Bulls had a 22-4 lead in second chance points. Nice efforts there from Washington.

McGee also mostly likes to block shots. So Noah took off after misses and beat him down court by five steps after a Young miss and got a lob dunk from Rose to make it 10-4 in a game which the Wizards led for a total of… never.

The next aggressive defensive contest you see from a Washington player may be the first.

This was no contest against Wall, not that Rose looks at these matchups like that much. Wall, frankly, was a disappointment to watch. He plays wild, way out of control as if he’s on some AAU tryout to play for John Calipari. His defense is ridiculously poor and you can watch for a quarter and forget he played. His assist numbers are high, but they aren’t assists that make it easier for players. The Wizards play a lot of one-on-one isolation with jump shots and the NBA has become very generous in assist scoring. The league finally did take one from Rondo’s hugely inflated numbers when someone sent in tape of a pass he made to a teammate who then passed to another for the basket and Rondo got the assist. Wall just hands the ball to guys and if they happen to make a shot, and Young will make his share, he gets assists. Wall had nine points on three of 14 shooting and 10 assists.

I suppose he’ll be good because everyone says so, but I haven’t seen it yet.
JaVale McGee jumps at everything, and does get to a few balls, but all you have to do is roll to the basket and it’s layup after dunk.

That’s what Noah did early as he followed misses, some of which McGee caused, though there never was anyone to back cover for him. The Bulls had a 22-4 lead in second chance points. Nice efforts there from Washington.

McGee also mostly likes to block shots. So Noah took off after misses and beat him down court by five steps after a Young miss and got a lob dunk from Rose to make it 10-4 in a game which the Wizards led for a total of… never.

The next aggressive defensive contest you see from a Washington player may be the first.

This was no contest against Wall, not that Rose looks at these matchups like that much. Wall, frankly, was a disappointment to watch. He plays wild, way out of control as if he’s on some AAU tryout to play for John Calipari. His defense is ridiculously poor and you can watch for a quarter and forget he played. His assist numbers are high, but they aren’t assists that make it easier for players. The Wizards play a lot of one-on-one isolation with jump shots and the NBA has become very generous in assist scoring. The league finally did take one from Rondo’s hugely inflated numbers when someone sent in tape of a pass he made to a teammate who then passed to another for the basket and Rondo got the assist. Wall just hands the ball to guys and if they happen to make a shot, and Young will make his share, he gets assists. Wall had nine points on three of 14 shooting and 10 assists.

I suppose he’ll be good because everyone says so, but I haven’t seen it yet.

REACT: It's my feeling too, that Wall is not as good as the marketing hype wants to make him out to be. I also wonder if he "gets it." This doesn't mean I'm not happy to have him. It just means let's not make him the "face" of the franchise, just because there's nothing else right now. And let's not assume that he's somebody you can "build around" just because he was #1/#1. 


As for the rest of this roster, Smith is right. It's a mindless mess. A truly awful collection of rusted, spare parts,  that gives a half-assed effort about 80% of the time.