The Washington Wizards lost to the Houston Rockets 136-118. The team and the fans had to endure another embarrassing loss.
Nothing is going right for the Washington Wizards. It seems as though they are still figuring things out. A lot has happened recently with trades and injuries, but that’s not excuse going forward.
In the last seven games the Wizards are 1-6. The bottom half of the Eastern Conference is bad, but Washington isn’t even good enough to be in the conversation with the bad teams.
Wednesday night, the Houston Rockets put on a shooting clinic, making an historic 26 3’s. This set an NBA record for most in a single game. Unfortunately for the Wizards, the Rockets were virtually unstoppable.
Scoring wasn’t the issue for Washington. They shot 53.6% from the field and 33% from beyond the arc. Bradley Beal led the team with 28 points, while John Wall added 18 points and 12 assists. Newly acquired pieces Trevor Ariza and Sam Dekker each had 15 points a piece.
Once again, it was the defensive side of things that lost Washington the game. They couldn’t guard the step back threes. What’s even more embarrassing is that the team only looks like they put in a defensive effort for 8-10 seconds of the shot clock when on defense.
The Wizards were forced to into playing isolation basketball on both ends of the floor. And it’s foolish to think that Chris Paul and James Harden can be guarded one-on-one. Harden dropped 35 points and Paul added 21 points.
The Rockets spaced the Wizards out and it was to much for them to handle. No one seemed to play help side defense, which caused to many easy baskets. It also doesn’t help that they were out-rebounded once again 41-31.
When traveling on the road, Washington has been down right awful. The team can’t keep stating “they have to figure it out” because their time is practically up.
It’s blatantly obvious that the Wizards don’t play team basketball especially on the defensive end. It’s at the point where more changes won’t make a difference. It comes down do these players really caring about putting their ego’s aside and winning games. Right now it doesn’t appear that way.
Oh, by the way, Kelly Oubre Jr. was clutch in his first game with the Phoenix Suns. He helped lead them to a victory over the Boston Celtics with 13 points and 6 rebounds.The Suns come to D.C. to take on the Wizards Saturday night, which will be an interesting game to watch.