The Washington Wizards looked like a hard-playing, fun group four games into the season. Then they played their fifth game.
“If you have one bad game, let’s not make it two. And if you have two bad games, let’s not make it three.” That was the mindset of Washington Wizards coach Scott Brooks after Saturday night’s drubbing at the hands of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Four games into the NBA season, the Wizards were 1-3, but at least they were fun to watch. They were hustling, and they were competing. They had lost their first three games by a combined 11 points and actually had a positive point differential despite having just one win.
Then came Saturday night, their second home game of the season. It was anything but home-cooking.
As the game tipped off, D.C. was riding championship adrenaline provided by that afternoon’s World Series parade for the Washington Nationals. Maybe the Wizards got too caught up in the day’s festivities, but they were flat from the get-go, giving up 42 first-quarter points. The final result: a 131-109 blowout that all but washed away any optimism from week one of the new season.
Unlike their first four performances, this one looked like last year’s Wizards. A few telling numbers from the loss show just what went wrong. Maybe we were overly optimistic under the Tommy Sheppard regime to start the season. But after a twenty-plus point loss to a shorthanded Timberwolves team, perhaps it’s time to temper expectations.