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KLMNO PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL Wizards have a week to get ready for the season opener
Though young and still adjusting to roles, players see positives
BYMICHAEL LEE The preseason is over, but the
preparation is hardly done for the Washington Wizards, with the team opening the regular season next week in Orlando. After los- ing their final three games of the exhibition schedule, the Wizards (3-4) took the day off onWednes- day before getting back to what Coach Flip Saunders referred to as “a second training camp.” The seven preseason games
didn’t count, but they revealed much about the strengths of the team and the areas of concern for the upcoming season. The Wiz- ards know by now that JohnWall can break down defenses with his scorching speed, JaVale McGee will compete with Wall to pro- duce the most spectacular play of the night, Kirk Hinrich is steady and reliable, and Andray Blatche is their best hope for high-per- centage, low-post scoring — if Blatche decides to go inside. And, though he played just
three games — because of a real mild groin injury andsome“fake” knee soreness — Gilbert Arenas proved to be an efficient scorer while sharing the court withWall andHinrich. The Wizards also discovered
that with such a young and inex- perienced team, they will have to play hard and together in order to win or be competitive in games. “We were a little inconsistent. We’ve got a lot of things we’ve got to work on and touch up on, before Orlando, for sure,”Hinrich said. “I hope we have a sense if we play the rightway, a sense forwho we are. If we play the right way, we can be a decent team. If we don’t, we can get embarrassed.” Fortunately for the Wizards,
they only had one game — a 107-96 loss in Chicago—in which they entered the fourth quarter with no chance of winning. The last three losses to Milwaukee, NewYork andDetroit were decid- ed in the final minutes. Saunders was pleased with the Wizards’ overall defense, as they held six of
TONI L. SANDYS/THE WASHINGTON POST The Wizards know they’re a team in transition, but leader JohnWall isn’t expecting to lose a lot. “We got a chance to be good.We’ve just got to do a lot more learning,” he said.
their opponents below 100 points. But after each of their losses, Saunders and his players spoke about a “sticking problem” and a lack of ball movement that con- tributed to careless turnovers. “We got to get more consistent
with sharing the ball, more con- sistent playing together,” Saun- ders said. “Sometimes, when you have young guys on the floor, they are all trying to establish them- selves. We’ve got to work on that trust factor over the next eight days.”
Although he missed twogames
with a sprained left ankle and returned to the play the final two, Al Thornton said he noticed an-
other area that the Wizards need to improve upon. “When a team matches our
intensity, it hasn’t been looking good for us,” Thornton said. “We just got to bring it every day. We’ve got to continue to work hard. Just being more physical, period.” After losing to Detroit, 98-92,
in the preseason finale, Saunders talked to his team about the importance of communicating with each other on the court and taking every practice and shoot- around seriously. The Wizards have one of the league’s youngest rosters, with the average age of the 12 players with guaranteed contracts being about 24. Their
youthful exuberance was obvious during pre-game warm-ups, when the players routinely turned layup lines into impromp- tu slam-dunk contests. Wall, the Wizards’ rookie cap-
tain, said he would do his part to help develop the right mind-set. “We got a chance to be good.
We’ve just got to do a lot more learning,” said Wall, who led the team in scoring (15.7) and the league in assists (7.9) and min- utes (35.4). “If we talk to each other, trust each other more and play hard every minute, we should be straight.” Wall lost more games in the preseason than he did his entire freshman season at Kentucky, as
the Wildcats went 35-3 and ad- vanced to the Elite Eight. “It’s real tough,”Wall said. “I’mnot really a person that’s lost a lot of games in my career. That’s one thing I have to adjust to, but hopefully, we don’t have that many losses through the whole season.” Saunders is still waiting to
determine what his starting unit will be heading into the season opener, with him using four dif- ferent lineups in the preseason. He also expressed some concern over Arenas’s strained groin. “We don’t know. We still don’t know what Gil’s situation is,” Saunders said. The Magic was unbeaten through the first seven games of
this preseason and will play its final exhibition game on Friday, giving the Wizards a slight advan- tage while preparing. Saunders said he would split up the prac- tice schedule by giving his players at least one more day off before the opener. “This is much-due for us,” Blatche said. “We’ve got a lot to learn, [eight] days is perfect for us. Practice makes perfect. It’s better to practice for it than jump right into it. That’s what we’re going to do, practice hard. We’re still young. We’re still fighting, trying to learn each other. We’re still figuring who’s what and who’s going to be what. It’s going to come around for us.”
leem@washpost.com
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