Wizards show off new additions, skills in preseason opener against Warriors

Preseason basketball is a strange, beautiful thing. It’s sort of like the first semester of college. New arrivals are encouraged to try new things to find out what they are good at. Returners (looking at you, seniors…) shake off the rust ahead of another long year. It’s also a weird, awkward time where people don’t know each other or where the hell they are supposed to be. That was the vibe of the Wizards preseason opener against the Golden State Warriors Friday morning.

At various points in the game, Wizards fans got a look at facets of players’ games which they probably had never seen before. Things like Daniel Gafford taking elbow jump shots, Kristaps Porzingis pushing the ball in transition to lead the fast break or new Wizard Taj Gibson shooting (and making?) threes.

In basketball terms, guys get the chance to get some run before the season takes on any real significance, getting a low-stakes opportunity to test out the skills they worked to hone over the summer months against real NBA competition.

For those reasons, any pearls of wisdom from this game should be taken with a rather large grain of salt. Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, shall we? Teams change and players change over the course of a season and that will be no different for the Wizards this year.

Recap:

The Washington Wizards kicked off the official 2022-23 NBA season with a preseason opener against the defending champions, the Golden State Warriors at Saitama Super Arena in Tokyo, Japan.

The preseason game, which saw 16 Warriors and 14 Wizards players get time on the court, ended in a 96—87 win for the Warriors.

In addition to getting early-season jitters out of the way, the game allowed fans to see the new-look Wizards take the court for the first time together.

Notably missing for the Wizards were Deni Avdija and new addition Will Barton. Avdija is nursing a groin injury he suffered while playing for Israel in the EuroBasket tournament, while Barton was listed as having an illness.

The two are widely considered to be leading the competition for the Wizards’ starting small forward spot — the only position which isn’t locked up ahead of the season.

After a slow start by both teams in the first quarter, each got back to a sense of normalcy in the second, scoring 25 points apiece. Golden State led 41–37 at halftime.

As the benches emptied early on and the quality of play decreased, the Warriors pulled away to the 96–87 victory, outscoring the Wizards by 5 points in the second half.

Takeaways:

What’s the offense look like in the preseason opener?

This was the first time we got to see Bradley Beal and Kristaps Porzingis share the floor together as a tandem, after Beal missed the back end of last season with a wrist injury and the Wizards front office traded for Porzingis at the deadline.

The duo clearly have a lot of offensive potential, especially in their dribble handoff actions around the elbow, or high post. Given Beal and Porzingis’ shotmaking in that area of the floor, the combination could be very deadly.

“It’s pretty good working with (Kristaps Porzingis), just getting a feel of where he likes the ball and his spots, getting to feel different defenses and looks besides ourselves,” Beal told reporters after the game.

“He’s the most talented big I have ever played with,” he continued. “He is super skilled. I love his toughness, his ability to shoot. He’s a very selfless player, he is unselfish. It’s going to be tough for teams to guard us two, for sure.”

A two-man game built around dribble-handoffs between a talented scoring big and explosive shooting guard was the hallmark of the Denver Nuggets offense Wizards head coach Wes Unseld Jr. helped to mastermind with Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray. Expect to see more of these types of plays moving forward.

This play is a clear example of putting the defense in a position where they have to choose who to defend between the two deadly scorers. Porzingis sets a pin-down for Beal, who comes up from the corner and turns the corner to get downhill. Wiggins follows over the screen and Looney shows, which leaves Porzingis unattended and open for the lob.

Also visible in that play is what the Wizards will look to accentuate later in the season — Kispert and Hachimura, both plus three-point shooters, at spacing the floor should either of their defenders stunt on the Beal drive, leaving them open for the kick out pass.

On another play, Porzingis’ reputation as a shooter keeps Looney glued to him at the three-point line, unable to play in a drop to defend the Beal drive. As Moody hesitates as to whether to go over or under the screen, Beal blows by both for the easy layup.

Wizards forward Kyle Kuzma showed out as well, heating up after a thunderous, soaring dunk over James Wiseman (who had a standout game for the Warriors, scoring 20 points and grabbing 9 boards), hitting a deep catch-and-shoot three pointer over the contesting arms of Draymond Green.

Rui

With both Avdija and Barton out, forward Rui Hachimura played the most minutes of any Wizard in the preseason opener. Hachimura finished with 13 points on 5-of-9 shooting, 9 rebounds and a steal in his 25 minutes.

Hachimura was aggressive from the tip, which is a great sign for the 4th-year player who is entering a contract year. Three key items have occupied the top of Rui’s to-do list entering each of his past three seasons: shooting, defense and effort.

After plateauing improvement in the majority of those areas over his first two seasons, Hachimura came back from an extended absence last year with a refined long-range jumpshot which propelled him to an astounding 44.7% on a career high 2.9 attempts per game last season.

The shot looked rusty against Golden State, as Rui went 0-4 from deep and only 3-7 at the free-throw line. The good news, though, was that he hunted his shot — actively seeking out opportunities to make sagging defenders pay from deep. Hachimura could even be seen moving off-ball and running off screens at times to get open. While “movement shooter” is likely not going to be an accurate descriptor of his game at any time in his career, seeing Rui try some new things was encouraging.

When asked about the possibility of Hachimura competing for open forward spot by the Washington Post’s Ava Wallace, Unseld Jr. had this to say.

“We said it from the get-go, more the small forward position but we have a lot of guys who can play both spots. I think tonight he was really good. He was aggressive, defensively (he was) extremely active. I want to see him continue that trend,” Unseld Jr. said. “We had two guys out, so it just made sense to insert him and bump Kyle down just to give it a look in live action.”

PG play

Perhaps the most exciting takeaway from the preseason opener was the play of the Wizards’ new 1-2 punch at point guard, Monte Morris and Delon Wright.

The pair fit seamlessly into the core group the Wizards have put together over the past few years, including Beal, Porzingis and Kuzma.

For a team which has run through its share of point guards over the past few years — some fitting better alongside Bradley Beal than others — Morris looks to be a perfect fit.

In his 18 minutes, Morris had 9 points, 5 assists, 1 steal and 1 rebound. In lineups with Beal and Porzingis, he played well off-ball after getting the team into its offensive set, including hitting a catch-and-shoot three-pointer off the feed from Porzingis who found himself double-teamed deep in the paint.

That’s a scenario the Wizards are hoping will repeat itself, leveraging Morris’ career 39.4% three-point percentage to exert pressure on defenses as Porzingis and Beal pass from inside of a collapsing defense.

Morris’ 2.5 assist-to-turnover ratio was also encouraging, though not surprising, as the point-guard had a staggeringly good assist-to-turnover ratio of 4.2 last season.

Wright, on the other hand, fit the bill as the defensive-minded, point-of-attack defender the Wizards have long needed.

Wright showed what he will bring to this Wizards roster throughout his time on the court, but he shined guarding shifty scorer Jordan Poole, shutting down Poole’s ability to drive and staying grounded on his nifty shot-fakes out of the triple-threat.

Wright also blocked three shots on the night, including an emphatic rejection on Daniel Gafford’s man as he rotated as the help-side defender, and a recovery to Poole to block a pull-up from behind.

Johnny Davis

Now… Johnny Davis. I have this to say: Davis was more aggressive than the timid player we saw in Summer League. Davis looked for and got to his spots, including some wide-open one-dribble pull-up jumpers from around the free-throw line (one of his bread and butter shots in college). Unfortunately, he missed all of them, going 0-5 from the field.

I am by no means out on Davis, and he showed progress in his 22 minutes on the court Friday if just in that he didn’t look entirely out of place next to legitimate NBA players. It is just the preseason opener, so maybe time will tell. Davis does, however, need time to mature and get more comfortable in his game at the NBA level. I expect a heavy helping of G-League starts for the rookie.

The Wizards face the Warriors again tomorrow at 1 a.m. EST in their second preseason game.