Jimmy Patsos coaches to... make a statement?

If you don't know who Jimmy Patsos (above) is, he's the men's head basketball coach at Loyola (Md.) College. He's a former assistant coach under Gary Williams at Maryland, and he was around when the Terps' won a national title against Indiana in 2002.

Anyway, Loyola faced Davidson yesterday and Patsos employed a triangle-and-2 defense to try to stop Stephen Curry, Davidson's outstanding guard and a player who will more than likely be a high first-round pick in next year's NBA draft. (A triangle-and-2 defense is when two defenders shadow one or two players and the three other players on defense basically play a 1-2 zone.)

Patsos is a pretty good coach, but he figured his team had no chance to stop Curry, so he figured, hey, why not just take him out of the game and see what happens?

“If Oklahoma can’t stop him, how is Loyola College going to stop him?” Patsos asked.

Well, what happened was a 30-point loss. Then again, Curry didn't score any points, so, moral victory!

Unfortunately, some fans weren't pleased with Patsos's decision; the same goes for Davidson's head coach.

Some will remember the catcalls Patsos received from the fans when he stuck with the defense well after the game was decided. Davidson coach Bob McKillop was so annoyed he kept Curry in the game until the final minute.

“It seemed to me they were willing to risk the game at the expense of locking Steph up,” McKillop said. “When you put two people on somebody and you do it for 30 minutes and at the end of the game, you have to wonder what the reasons for that are.”

Those Maryland coaches are just off the wall, aren't they?

Blatche shows potential in Wizards win over Warriors

Playing at home against the Golden State Warriors, the Wizards, under interim head coach Ed Tapscott, looked more like a 10-1 team instead of a 1-10 team as they defeated the Warriors 124-100.

The Wizards filled the stat sheet as they dominated from the very beginning. As a team, the Wiz shot over 50 percent from the field, hit 40 percent of their three-pointers, outrebounded the Warriors 54-40 (including 23 offensive rebounds), and tallied 27 assists, 12 steals, and 9 blocks. The defense, which seemed much more active, limited the Warriors to 6 three-pointers made (30 percent) and forced 20 turnovers.

Individual numbers were just as impressive. Caron Butler was the game's high scorer with 35 points; he also finished with 8 rebounds, 6 assists, and 3 steals. Jamison scored 25 points and grabbed 11 rebounds. Rookie JaVale McGee started the game off strong with an alley oop from DeShawn Stevenson immediately following the opening tip-off, and he finished with 14 points and 5 rebounds.

But the most shocking and welcomed performance was by Andray Blatche. In 29 minutes on the floor, a season high, Blatche looked comfortable on both offense and defense. In his most complete game as a Wizard, he finished with 25 points (11-18), 12 rebounds, 5 assists, 5 blocks, and 2 steals. He only committed 1 turnover and played some strong minutes alongside McGee.

Jamison noticed a change in Blatche's production. "Maybe for him the biggest key is a new voice," he said, "a different voice in the locker room." Either way, Blatche looked like a completely different player.

Did the Wizards play with more energy because of some anger or frustration over the firing of Eddie Jordan? Probably. Did playing against the Warriors, a team that is allowing the second-most points per game this season (106.1), aid a rather stagnant offense? I'm sure it did. But the Wizards still played their best game of this still-young season, and Tapscott gave plenty of minutes to the young guys: McGee (20 minutes), Blatche (29 minutes), Young (22 minutes), and McGuire (17 minutes). McGuire's 17 minutes, a season high for him as well, came as a shock, but he didn't disappoint. He's not an offensive force by any means (2 points), but he did hustle on defense and managed to grab 5 rebounds and also finished with 2 steals and 2 blocks.

Tapscott also kept Thomas on the bench, which is where he should be unless McGee or Blatche gets in foul trouble or is injured. Thomas has played hard this season, but the Wizards just play better when he's not in the lineup. (For proof, check out his -29.9 Net48 total, the lowest on the team, on 82games here.) Tapscott also refused to play Songaila at center, another strong indication of how he will handle bench players' minutes.

The Wizards have two tough games coming up against the Orlando Magic and Atlanta Hawks, so hopefully Tapscott sticks to his guns and continues to hand out minutes to the young players, which he should do even if the Wizards don't play as well as they did yesterday.

More on Eddie Jordan

Earlier today, Ivan Carter, the Wizards' beat writer for the Washington Post, was interviewed on SportsCenter and basically said what most Wizards' fans think about the move to fire Eddie Jordan this morning. Jordan was certainly partially responsible for an underachieving start, but everyone on the team has to play better, period.

Who is Ed Tapscott?

When the Wizards decided to fire Eddie Jordan this morning, I was unaware of who Tapscott was or that he was even on the Wizards' coaching staff. Now he's the head coach of the team (at least for a while), so a little background information seems useful.

This is Tapscott's first time as an NBA head coach, but "he has plenty of front-office experience, including as president and chief operating officer of the Charlotte Bobcats and, before that, as vice president of player personnel and basketball operations for the Knicks in the 1990s." Grunfeld was running the Knicks at that time, which appears to be why the other assistant coaches were looked over.

Tapscott also followed Gary Williams as head coach of American University in 1982. When he was coaching under Williams, Tapscott "was in charge of the defense, and advocated a full-court, 94-foot game, a pressure defense and a fast-breaking offense," which is interesting to note because the Wizards do none of those things, especially the whole playing defense part.

The above link to the DC Sports Bog also includes the following quote from Tapscott:

"While I was attending Sidwell Friends, I used to come to AU to watch practice. The doors were always locked so I had to look through the cracks between the doors. I was an admirer of Kermit Washington and Tom Young's coaching and I hope to continue that legacy. The doors might not be locked now, but there will be someone watching who comes in."

It remains unclear at this time whether or not Tapscott plans to lock Oleksiy Pecherov out of practice.

Wizards fire Jordan

According to Ivan Carter of the Washington Post, Eddie Jordan was fired this morning. Ed Tapscott, the Director of Player Development, will take over as head coach.

As the Wizards head coach, Jordan had a record of 197-224 and was 8-18 in the playoffs. He coached the Wizards into the playoffs in four of his five full seasons with the team, but the Wizards only advanced out of the first round once (in 2005), only to be swept by the Miami Heat in four games.

A 1-10 start to this season with a most recent loss to the short-handed Knicks didn't help Jordan's cause.

With the move, the Wizards relieve the Eastern Conference's longest-tenured head coach of his duties.

One of the worst plays I've ever seen

The video speaks for itself:



(Found on Basketbawful)

Piling on

The Wizards are now 1-8 after a disappointing loss to an Atlanta Hawks team with Josh Smith and Al Horford. The game was competitive until the very end when, shockingly, the Wizards failed to get some timely defensive stops and instead left shooters wide open.

But I'm not going to go on a pointless rant. The Wizards are playing hard every night; they just can't finish games down the stretch because they don't have the talent to overcome as many mistakes.

Anyway, I'm just going to post a couple of heartbreaking videos that many Wizards fans know all too well. A 1-8 record is really bad, but I guess things could always be worse. At least the Wizards haven't lost like this yet. And Michael Ruffin could still be on the team.



Did I mention that I'm not fond of the Raptors?



Hey, at least JaVale McGee finally started!

Wizards need a change -- and fast

After consecutive losses to the Miami Heat, the Wizards' record stands at 1-7, the worst in the Eastern Conference. Fans and players are frustrated; here's what Jamison had to say after the most recent loss to the Heat:

"It's tough right now but we're going to stay positive and continue to work hard. We're going to do everything possible to turn this thing around. It's tough when you put yourself in position to win, but you just can't get it done. We're going to get on a plane, learn from our mistakes, and once we touch down in Atlanta, we need to get focused on a pretty good Atlanta team that is playing well at home."

Head coach Eddie Jordan is also starting to show some frustration:

"This team is built for Gilbert Arenas to lead us; this team is built for our all star forwards to do certain offensive things for us and for Brendan Haywood to have a career year manning the middle for us. We don't have those things. You're asking people to do things they are not capable of doing. They are not capable of carrying the load for us like a Dwyane Wade, like a Gilbert Arenas. You've got young guys who aren't going to make veteran plays night in, night out."

There's no questioning the fact that the Wizards would be much better off with Arenas and Haywood in the lineup. While Jordan is right about having several young players, he routinely sends his overmatched veterans out to start the first and third quarters, forcing his team to dig out of deficits at least twice a game. Want proof? Here are the +/- numbers to start the first and third quarters before Jordan makes his first substitution.

Game 1 (95-85 L to Nets): tied in 1st (4:16), +1 in 3rd (4:16)
Game 2 (117-109 L to Pistons): -14 in 1st (2:47), -7 in 3rd (5:05)
Game 3 (112-104 L to Bucks): -10 in 1st (3:46), +4 in 3rd (5:03)
Game 4 (114-108 L to Knicks): -6 in 1st (3:45), -5 in 3rd (6:56)
Game 5 (106-81 L to Magic): -6 in 1st (2:42), -6 in 3rd (4:31)
Game 6 (95-87 W vs. Jazz): -4 in 1st (3:36), -3 in 3rd (7:41)
Game 7 (97-77 L to Heat): -8 in 1st (1:57), +7 in 3rd (6:28)*
Game 8 (94-87 L to Heat): -4 in 1st (4:39), -8 in 3rd (9:41)

* Darius Songaila started the quarter in place of Etan Thomas.

Other info: The starting five for games 1, 2, 4, and 6 was Daniels, Stevenson, Butler, Jamison, and Thomas. The starting five for game 3 was Daniels, Stevenson, Butler, Jamison, and Blatche, and the starting five for games 5, 7, and 8 was Dixon, Stevenson, Butler, Jamison, and Thomas.

The Wizards are a combined -69 (!) before the first substitution is made in the first and third quarters. What that means is the following: The young guys that do come in the game like Young, McGee, and Blatche have their work cut out for them and need to work hard to get their team back in the game. Sure, the starting lineups are also playing against the starting lineups of other teams, which may be tougher, but they're still getting significantly outplayed.

I also don't think it's a concidence that two of the three positive starts to quarters came with Etan Thomas not in the lineup. And that means that either McGee or Blatche should start in his place. Or, at least Blatche would be in a position to start or play more if he didn't have problems with his conditioning. According to Jordan, Blatche's conditioning "hasn't gotten to the point where it's where it should be, where he can sustain a high level of intensity and a high level of concentration." In that case, McGee should be the starting center until Haywood returns.

The case could also be made that Nick Young should be starting in place of DeShawn Stevenson. Not only has Young played better than Stevenson after eight games, but Stevenson also appears to be dealing with a hamstring problem. Stevenson is averaging 8.0 points, 1.5 rebounds, and 1.6 assists; last year, he averaged 11.2 points, 2.9 rebounds, and 3.1 assists. He played about 5 more minutes per game last year, but he also shot better from the 3-point line (38.3% in '07, 29.0% in '08). He's obviously struggling a bit, and even though he's been known to play through injuries before, if he's hurting the team in the starting lineup, then he needs to be replaced.

Young, on the other hand, is almost doubling his offensive production from last season. The injury to Gilbert Arenas and the departure of Roger Mason have given Young more minutes (over 28 per game), and he's scoring 14.8 points per game off of the bench. He's also shooting a solid 47.2% from the field despite shooting a miniscule 14.3% from 3-point range. It goes without saying that Young seems to be at his best when he's creating off the dribble or shooting fadeaways. According to 82games, the Wizards are also +7 when Young is on the floor and -91 when Stevenson is playing.

While Young has been solid, McGee has probably been the biggest bright spot on an otherwise ugly start to the season. The McGee selection in last year's draft was ripped by several analysts and colunnists (here, here, and here), but McGee has been one of the best players so far this season. In a little over 21 minutes per game, the rookie is averaging 9.0 points, 6.0 rebounds, and 1.1 blocks. McGee seems to have a big future, and he should continue to get plenty of minutes. The Wizards are also +1 with McGee on the court (and -66 when Thomas plays).

Besides two blowout losses to the Magic and Heat, the Wizards have been competitive; a few plays here or there and the team could be .500 right now -- but they're not. Starting Young and McGee wouldn't necessarily guarantee the Wizards any victories, but having Jordan revamp the starting lineup and bench rotations would give the team more of a chance to win some more games.