Washington Wizards 7th in opponent points per game in last four games
By Keith Cork
The Washington Wizards are still giving up the most points in the league, but it’s been much better recently and it needs to stay that way for us to win.
They say defense wins championships, but bad defense loses basketball games too. The Washington Wizards are the epitome of this flip of the ol’ axiom, sitting on a 20-33 record and giving up a whopping 119.8 points per game.
It’s so bad, Bleacher Report recently put together a list of the league’s worst defenders at each position and three of the five “stars” of that list were Washington Wizards players. Three of them. Yikes.
light. Hot. Bleacher Report’s “worst defender” list features three Washington Wizards
I took a bit of umbrage with that one, as I thought it was just a bit unfair. But what may come as a surprise is that over the their last four games, since the trade deadline, the Washington Wizards sit at 7th in opponent’s points per game.
So what changed?
The biggest change is that the Wizards shipped out Isaiah Thomas and now start Ish Smith at the point guard position. Having a useless IT3 in defense made the rest of our team’s defense look absolutely awful.
We don’t have the kind of team composition to play 4-on-5 defense, without an above average rim protector (sorry Ian Mahinmi, Moritz Wagner, and Thomas Bryant) or a perimeter hawk. Sorry Bradley Beal.
But none of these guys are particularly bad on the defensive end, despite Bleacher Report’s list. When three guys pop up, it’s clear there’s a problem endemic to that side of the floor, and it wasn’t Scott Brooks‘ uninspired defensive schemes. This time.
The other issue was obviously injuries, with the Wizards having the second-most missed games due to injury in the league. Getting back players like Rui Hachimura, Moritz Wagner, and Davis Bertans has been a boon to our team.
The Washington Wizards are only giving up 108.5 poiints per contest after shipping IT out, with a 3-1 record including an impressive win over the Dallas Mavericks. Here’s hoping they can keep up that momentum toomorrow night against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
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