If you told me two weeks ago the Wizards-Bulls first round playoff matchup was over after five games, with Nenê being disqualified from four games and one team not winning a single game at home I would not have felt good about the Wizards' chances. But lo and behold, last night it was the Wizards closing out the Bulls in Chicago to end a quick series that Washington completely dominated. For the first time since 2005 and the second time since 1982, Washington's basketball team is in round two of the NBA playoffs.
If there's one big picture theme I take away from the last week and a half, it's how well the Wizards can play when focused. The Wizards had a number of stretches this season where they won four out of five (heck, we even had a six game winning streak in late February / early March) but none were this impressive and we had some serious concentration lapses, especially at home. I know very often in playoff series a superior team can kill an inferior team when presented with a best of seven series. I never expected us to finish the Bulls off the way we did. Total domination. After five seasons missing the postseason, this series was really sweet.
So for the first time since we beat these same Bulls (OK, maybe not the SAME Bulls once you get beyond Kirk Hinrich) in 2005, the Wizards are in the Eastern Conference semi-finals. And we might have home court advantage if the Atlanta Hawks manage to close out the number one seed Indiana Pacers tomorrow night. Before I look forward to that series, here's this fan's six pack take on what was so memorable about this year's first round series.
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| Is that a basketball or a grapefruit? Tony Snell stood no chance here. |
Of the five games in the series, Nenê finished only one and didn't play at all in game four. Yet his presence was felt in significant ways in all five games. From his game one playoff career high 24 points on 11 of 17 shooting to his closing game five 10 of 17, 20 point performance, to the "Free Nenê" chants by the Verizon Center crowd at the end of game four. Nenê may not have been the best player on the court in all five games but in ways that continue to confound all non-Wizards fan, Nenê demonstrated over the past week and a half why he is the most important cog on the Wizards team until John Wall is ready to assume that mantle in full.
It is absolutely amazing that the Nuggets allowed us to have Nenê for the small price of JaVale McGee. The Nuggets got a knuckleheaded freaky athletic center with poor court awareness and a total misunderstanding of the concept of team play and we get back one of the most cerebral passing big men in the game who makes this team instantly better. The Nuggets gave up Nenê according to what I have read because they were convinced Kenneth Faried could take his place in the Nuggets starting five at a way lower price and they were concerned about a history of injuries. Kenneth Faried is a nice player but he's no Nenê and since the February 2012 trade, Nenê has played 125 regular season games to JaVales's 104. No second round playoff appearances for the Nuggets with JaVale; one for the Wizards with Nenê. Wonder who won that trade?
I sat down for like 5 seconds of that overtime. Wow!!!!! #WizBulls
— Jonathan Hopwood (@jonathanhopwood) April 23, 2014
2. Game Two Overtime
I watch sports to see my team beat their opponents. I don't watch for the love of the game or the majesty of the competition or any sort of nonsense like that. I only want to see my team win. Having said that, on any given night I'm eager to get to the point when I can declare victory as soon as possible. I have no problem blowing away the competition, crushing their spirit and cruising to an easy W.
But I have to say close games are way more exciting, especially when whatever team I am rooting for pulls out a close hard fought game. The overtime period of game two in Chicago has to be one of the most intense Wizards games I've watched on TV in a while. It was a late start (9:30 p.m.) and the overtime period pushed the completion of the game to beyond 12:30 a.m. with work the next day. But pulling out that win was so satisfying that staying up late and not sitting down at all due to nervous energy until Kirk Hinrich missed his two free throws in the last minute of OT were worth it. I can't remember a Wizards road game that intense since Caron Butler hit the game winner at the buzzer in game 5 of the 2008 playoff first round series against Cleveland. I like playing Chicago way better than Cleveland in the playoffs.
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| The opening of game three, first home playoff game at VC in six years. |
Six years without a playoff game is a long time. What made the drought worse was the almost complete lack of playoff atmosphere games at Verizon Center during that span. Sure the Wizards have had great wins against good teams, most notably in the last couple of years against the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder, but even those games had too many bandwagon non-Miami and Oklahoma natives making altogether too much noise for the visitors. The closest I think we came since 2008 to a playoff atmosphere in the phone booth was this year's March 15 game against the Brooklyn Nets. The place was rocking at the end of that comeback victory.
So it was truly special to get to game three. The lines outside Verizon Center were longer than I have ever seen, even inside the back side movie theater entrance, where the line of Wizards (not Bulls) fans stretched across the lobby and eventually wrapped into itself. I can't remember this much excitement over a Wizards game in a while. The scene inside was equally impressive, with red, white and blue t-shirts waiting on each seat and a packed house at tipoff. The scene captured above is what I want each Wizards game to be like, even if it's a Tuesday night game against Milwaukee. I can always dream, right? By game four, the city had reverted to a late arriving crowd again. Maybe we can do better in round two.
4. Depth
Two years ago during the lockout shortened 2011-2012 season, the Wizards roster on opening day featured seven players on their rookie contracts with top reserve Nick Young on a qualifying offer after just completing his fourth year. While there were a few veteran role players, the most important Wizards player not on his rookie deal was likely Andray Blatche. Third year man John Wall and rookie Chris Singleton were the only two players to appear in all 66 games that year.
One of the reasons the Wizards so thoroughly dominated the Bulls over the past ten days was the team's depth. Unlike the Bulls, who (admittedly without Derrick Rose) self limited their team to seven with an occasional cameo from Tony Snell, the Wizards posted a solid eight man rotation of legitimate NBA players with the ability to insert Drew Gooden, Al Harrington, Garrett Temple and Kevin Seraphin in a pinch, especially during game four when Nenê was serving a one game suspension for head butting the Bulls' Jimmy Butler the previous game.
I think the depth of the team points to two things. First, the willingness of guys like Harrington and Gooden to want to play with a budding superstar like John Wall. Hopefully, Harrington's desire to join a team starting to make some noise for the veteran minimum is a sign of future things to come. Second, Ernie Grunfeld, despite whiffing on six of the last nine drafts, pulled together a pretty balanced team featuring a number of guys who can run up and down the court to complement John Wall and Bradley Beal's games. This team looks a little dangerous now that everyone is healthy.
5. Coaching
Before the Wizards-Bulls series started, I read a number of series predictions which broke down the matchup between the two teams into compartmentalized pieces as a means of predicting which team would emerge and move on to round two. Everything I read before the series started gave the coaching nod to Tom Thibodeau of the Bulls over our own Randy Wittman. In the press and coaching circles, Thibs is generally viewed as a top flight coach and motivator and defensive genius. Randy Wittman seems to be seen as a guy who is in the wrong spot at the right time and that if the Wizards were led by another coach (say…George Karl) they would have been way more successful.
But now that the series is over, there are a lot of reports out there that Wittman actually outcoached Thibodeau. I agree, even though that opinion is pretty well self-serving considering my thoughts of earlier this month. I generally view a head coach's responsibilities simplified into three different areas: game preparation, motivation and in game adjustments.
At the end of game one, which I watched on TNT, Marv Albert and Steve Kerr were gushing praise for the Wizards' defense. Defense and hard nosed prepared play has been one of Wittman's consistent messages since he took the Wizards' head coaching gig, yet no kudos were handed Randy's way during the broadcast. Team defense is not something that just happens. It takes work and practice and the Wizards have been a top ten team in defensive efficiency each of the last two years. Do we have defensive minded players? Sure. But the focus on defense that the head coach brings makes it all happen.
I believe Randy has our guys motivated. The players consistently backed Wittman throughout this season and last season as a guy who kept the end goals in focus, although that didn't always manifest itself on the court when I sat in the lower bowl of Verizon Center watching us lose to Philadelphia or Milwaukee. The Golden State Warriors' Mark Jackson gets a lot of props for being a master motivator and the resultant 51 win season in Oakland is credited in large measure to Jackson. Randy doesn't seem to get anything close to the same amount of credit. Maybe 44 wins in the East is obscuring what's really going on.
But the most humorous part of the coaching comparison in this series is the ability to adjust strategy and match ups in game, something that almost everyone was convinced Thibodeau would do to beat the Wizards. But Thibodeau refused to change up his approach in this series and it killed the Bulls. His insistence on playing his defense first team in the fourth quarter (damn the scoring!) didn't pan out and he didn't adjust. Randy made critical adjustments like switching Trevor Ariza onto D.J. Augustin in game two and coming up with a game plan to win a Nenê-less game four. I'm giving the coaching nod to Randy in this series.
6. Haters Where You Are?
The sixth of my six pack of my top memories of this series is the almost universal dismissal our team got in this round. ESPN's playoffs page for our series (above) showed 18 of 19 experts picking the Bulls to win the series in five, six or seven games. The Bulls avoiding the Brooklyn Nets was generally seen as a fortuitous situation for Chicago. Seems like everyone preferred the Bulls in this series except the Wizards themselves, who knew they could outrun and outscore the Bulls.
Nenê has famously talked about the Wizards' haters. Seeing his team beat the pulp out of the Bulls while those same people sat silent on the sidelines has to make him feel good.
Nenê has famously talked about the Wizards' haters. Seeing his team beat the pulp out of the Bulls while those same people sat silent on the sidelines has to make him feel good.
Round one is over and I'm looking forward to the next round against the Hawks or the Pacers. Missing in this list but no less important is Andre Miller finally reaching the second round of the playoffs. Andre was the all time leader in games played without winning a playoff series. No more. A few days off and then back at it. Hoping game one is at home on Sunday.
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