{"id":11959,"date":"2017-12-28T13:49:05","date_gmt":"2017-12-28T18:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonnba.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=11959"},"modified":"2017-12-28T13:49:05","modified_gmt":"2017-12-28T18:49:05","slug":"what-2017-18-washington-wizards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2017\/12\/28\/what-2017-18-washington-wizards\/","title":{"rendered":"What to Make of the 2017-2018 Washington Wizards"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you truly want to know what the 2017-18\u00a0Washington Wizards<\/a> are like as a team this season, looking at their past two games might give you a pretty good indication. First came the Christmas Day showdown with the Boston Celtics<\/a>. The Celtics\u2019 first Christmas Day home game was a game to remember for the Wizards, who fed off 25 points from Bradley Beal<\/a> <\/strong>and 21 points and 14 assists from John Wall<\/a> <\/strong>to overcome one of the best teams in the East.<\/p>\n

The good times, however, were short-lived. Two days later the Wizards traveled to Atlanta to face the last-place Hawks<\/a>, and a lackluster performance resulted in a 113-99 loss to a team that is only 6-11 at home.<\/p>\n

What to Make of the 2017-2018 Washington Wizards<\/strong><\/h2>\n

What are we supposed to make of this Wizards team? They currently sit right in the thick of the playoff race in the Eastern Conference<\/a> with a 19-16 record, but while the record looks decent on paper, there are problems in Washington that could get the way of a team chasing after its first conference finals appearance since 1979.<\/p>\n

One of the main problems the Wizards face is playing down to their competition. The Wiz Kids are 9-10 against teams below .500, a troubling stat for any playoff team, though it is encouraging that they are 10-6 against teams above .500. Still, to be an elite team you need to beat the teams you\u2019re supposed to, and the Wizards have not been doing that.<\/p>\n

Everyone Needs to Pitch In<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Another main problem is their distribution of wealth. While they do have one of the best backcourts in the NBA, they rely heavily on their guards to produce, which can mean that the rest of the team isn\u2019t always stepping up to help. Example? Even though John Wall is averaging nearly 8.9 assists per game alone, the Wizards are only averaging a meager 22.6 assists per game<\/a> as a team. Rebounding is even worse, as the Wizards sit in the bottom half of the league in rebounds per game at 43.3<\/a>, routinely getting out-rebounded by teams that have lower rebounding numbers than they do. They are not dominating where they should, and it\u2019s affected the team in many ways this season.<\/p>\n

A True Team Effort<\/strong><\/h3>\n

What do we make of this Wizards team? It\u2019s hard to tell. The emergence of Mike Scott<\/a> <\/strong>off the bench has been helpful to a team known for its lack of depth, but the Wizards will need a more all-around team effort to be effective going forward. It would be nice if they could rely on their superstars to carry them into the playoffs, but this year\u2019s team doesn\u2019t seem like it will be able to rely on any one player. The Wizards will need a true team effort in order to do well this season, and while it\u2019s nice beating the big dogs like Boston, it\u2019s the wins over the teams like the Hawks that will be a better indication of what type of team the Wizards can be.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main Photo<\/strong><\/h4>\n

WASHINGTON, USA – February 4: Washington Wizards’ John Wall (2) tries to dribble past New Orleans Pelicans’ Solomon Hill (44) at the Verizon Center in Washington, USA on February 4, 2017. The Wizards lead the Pelicans 53-49 at halftime and are trying to claim their 17th straight win at home. (Photo by Samuel Corum\/Anadolu Agency\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 2017-18 Washington Wizards have had an uneven season so far, and there is no better indication of that than the team’s last two games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1147,"featured_media":10231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,2],"tags":[65,311,310,1317,96,605,309],"class_list":["post-11959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wizards","category-featured","tag-basketball","tag-bradley-beal","tag-john-wall","tag-mike-scott","tag-nba","tag-nba-eastern-conference","tag-washington-wizards"],"modified_by":"Harrison Marcus","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}