Wizards Insider

The ugliness continued for the Wizards Saturday night against the Spurs. And based on the scenes Michael Lee witnessed during Washington's 106-84 loss to San Antonio, it's not going to get better any time soon. All of this ended too late to make many dead-tree versions of The Post (thank you, 8:30 start) but Mr. Lee covers it in his postgame thoughts.

UPDATE: NBA.com posted some comments made by Gilbert Arenas and Brendan Haywood after the game, which Mr. Lee will cover in his off-day story.

Here's the game story from Mike Jones of The Washington Times. And the short and not-so-sweet observations from Bullets Forever.

As usual, highlights courtesy of NBA.com:

Around the league...

Nine games on the slate Saturday, including one matinee. The Nets are still winless. LeBron James is still pretty good. Brandon Jennings can still fill it up. And the Hawks don't always win.

For the rest of the highlights, here's NBA.com's Daily Zap:

Sorry about the delay on the video and the blog. Similar to the Washington Wizards, I was experiencing some technical difficulties at the AT&T Center. How can you have jacked up wireless service at a building named after a phone company?

As for the game, there was one image from the game that really stood out for me. No, it wasn't the sight of Tony Parker weaving into the Wizards' defense; Tim Duncan nearly having a triple double by halftime; the Wizards clanking contested jumper after contesting jumper; Theo Ratliff greeting Randy Foye's drives to the basket with vicious swats, or even Roger Mason Jr. finally finding his shooting stroke as the Wizards conceded in the fourth quarter.

What stood out for me was the sight of Mike Miller being carried off the court, leaning on teammate Dominic McGuire and head athletic trainer Eric Waters. Only a few moments earlier, Miller just happened to be standing in the wrong spot when Gilbert Arenas came crashing to the floor when Duncan fouled him as he made a layup. Miller immediately reached for his leg and Arenas appeared startled as he stared up at Miller from his back.

I spent a good amount of time last night questioning why Miller was even on the court with his sprained left shoulder. He played, even as he knew that he was absorbing excruciating pain every time he ran through a screen, fought for a rebound or landed on the ground. Miller's shoulder wasn't the reason his night was over in the first period on Saturday night. He was taken out with strained calf muscle that Coach Flip Saunders said might have "popped" and could cost him four to five weeks.

Why am I focused so much on Miller? Because he really cares. He wanted this season to work so badly that he kept trying until his body forced him to stop. Now, I'm not saying that the other players on the Wizards don't care because they undoubtedly do. But not every appears to care about the same thing. That was glaringly obvious on a night when the Spurs had 32 assists compared to the Wizards, who had 12. You could blame the low assist numbers on the Wizards 33.3 percent shooting -- a season low -- and I'll contend that they shot so poorly because they were taking bad shots (and I'll give some credit to that staunch San Antonio defense, which reappeared last night).

"It's very frustrating," Caron Butler said after scoring just eight points on 3 of 9 shooting in 32 minutes. "Guys are battling injuries, still trying to go out there and compete at a high level and it's frustrating. You're looking at it and you look at a game like the night before you compete hard and give yourself a shot then you come back after resting all day and fall very short here in San Antonio. It's really painful."

The Wizards already appear to be splintering after just 12 games, and Saunders said afterward, "We're very much in a bad situation right now."

He mentioned that players frustrated over playing time; that they are playing tight and that they can't seem to put it all together. But it should tell you something about this horrific two-game trip, in which the Wizards lost by a combined 41 points, that Saunders said he felt better at halftime against San Antonio than he did at any point against Oklahoma City. "All we can do is get back to work," Saunders said. "There are a lot of guys right now that are frustrated, including me, but we have to work through it."

It is still amazing to me that after 12 games -- with Arenas and Brendan Haywood back, with new veteran pieces added to the mix, with a new coach with a stellar regular season winning percentage -- the Wizards (3-9) have only one more win than last season, when they finished with just 19 wins. "I don't want to look at the record. Because at the end of the day, you have to win some you have to lose some," Arenas said.

But the Wizards are losing much more than not. I remember a conversation with an NBA observer who told me that the problems with the Wizards were not going to solved when Antawn Jamison return. Jamison provided some heroics in his first game back against Cleveland, but the Wizards regressed in Oklahoma and Texas, and they still look like a team that has no chemistry. Players have yet to take to Saunders's systems and frustration is palpable. Saunders said that he would look to make some changes when the team practices again on Monday. And with Miller out, there certainly will have to be some changes made.

"We just got to plug away," Jamison said. "Right now we just got to really show some character, plug away until we can turn this thing around. We're still a good team."

Not right now.

Wizards starters: Gilbert Arenas, Mike Miller, Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison, Brendan Haywood

Spurs: Tony Parker, Keith Bogans, Richard Jefferson, Tim Duncan, Antonio McDyess

Line: Spurs by 7.5.

Back in San Antonio, where he spent his first four years in the NBA, Fabricio Oberto also returned to the Wizards after missing the past two games with a sore left hamstring. To make room for Oberto, Nick Young was moved to the inactive list (That might not sound like a big deal, but Young was the only player to all 82 games during that injury-riddled, 19-63 campaign last season).

Oberto used his short time at the AT&T Center to catch with some former teammates and other members of the Spurs' staff. He also spent time in the visiting team locker room for the first time. Oberto said that he wouldn't get too caught up the emotion on Saturday.

"It's weird because I know all the players. We got good relations. That's the thing," Oberto said. "When we start the game, I will cheer and play as hard as I can for my team. After the game, we can talk and catch up on old times."

The Spurs dealt Oberto last summer in a three-team trade with Milwaukee and Detroit that landed swingman Richard Jefferson. The Pistons later waived him and the Wizards signed him as a free agent. Although the Spurs had to make the move to improve, Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich said Oberto is still missed.

"A lot, and my wife misses him more than I do," Popovich said. "He's one of those guys you're around and you know he's going to heaven and you're going to hell. I don't know what to say aside fom that. He's just a great human being. He's just somebody everybody falls in love with. Everybody enjoys being around him. He's so kind to everybody you just miss seeing him."

Oberto carries his relationships in San Antonio every time he steps on the floor. With Andray Blatche wearing the No. 7 Oberto wore with the Spurs and in Olympic and European play, the 6-foot-10 reserve chose to wear the No. 21 because of Tim Duncan.

"Yep. One of the reasons," Oberto said. "He was laughing the day I told him. we have a good relationship. We spent a lot of time together."

He said it would be fun to match up with Duncan after battling him so many times in practice. "He's one of my favorite players. when I'm playing against him, it's always great," he said. "I think he's one of the greatest players at his position, ever."

Oberto admits that he still misses San Antonio, but won't waste time looking back on the championship he won with the Spurs in 1997.

"I look backwards the day I'm done with basketball," Oberto said. "Right now, I'm trying to look ahead. We have a lot of things to improve with our team. The main thing is to try and use all that experience, from when I played on Europe and on the national team."

Popovich said he knew that Oberto would quickly find a landing spot.

"Sure. He's too much of a pro not to," Popovich said. "He's doing a hell of a job for them."

Mike Miller played on Saturday after hurting his left shoulder on Friday in Oklahoma City. Coach Flip Saunders said he will continue to play Miller as long as Miller can play. "They just tell me what he can do and can't do," Saunders said of the team medical staff and trainers. "Mow and then, he gets it jarred a little bit and it's a little sore. I hope he'll be able to fight through that."

You thought the Wizards were having a rough start? Okay, they are pretty bad right now. But what about the San Antonio Spurs? After electing to pay the luxury tax for the first time in franchise history, the Spurs are just 4-6 and off to their worst 10-game start since Tim Duncan joined the team in 1997.

What? I didn't kill a bat! Wasn't me. Really. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

The Spurs have lost three in a row, including a 90-83 loss to the Utah Jazz on Thursday night. They haven't lost four in a row since March 2008. Here's what else you need to know about the Spurs:

1. Manu Ginobili showed tremendous reflexes when he slapped a bat down to the ground on Halloween. But the Spurs really just need him to be healthy. Unfortunately for San Antonio, that is easier said than done. He's out for the next week with a strained left groin.

2. A major reason for the Spurs' struggles this season has been that Tony Parker has missed four games because of left ankle sprain suffered on Nov. 6 against Portland. He's listed as day-to-day, but the Spurs continue to get hit with the injury bug.

3. What advice does Gregg Popovich give his team during this less-than-ideal start? He tells his players to ignore the record. The Spurs were able to bounce back from a 2-5 start last season with Roger Mason Jr. But Mason has started the season struggling to find his shot.

There was plenty of offense Friday night on both sides (69 combined points for the Wizards' big three; 35 points by District native Kevin Durant). But that doesn't make up for how poor the Wizards looked on defense.

Just when it seems like the offense is showing signs of life and Gilbert Arenas is taking better care of the ball (only 5 turnovers total the last two games), the defense allows a season high for points while the Thunder shoots 52.4 percent from three and 53 percent overall.

Michael Lee delves into all this in his late-night postgame thoughts. The Wizards have to shake it off quickly because they have to play at San Antonio on Saturday.

Mike Jones of The Washington Times was also on hand. We wonder if the headline writer had this little Garth Brooks ditty on the brain when piecing that together.

Here's the recap from the other side. The excitement for the Thunder is palpable.

And as usual, highlights courtesy of NBA.com:

Around the league...

Pretty eventful 10-game slate on Friday. Orlando picked up a big road win in Boston, a game in which Rajon Rondo played a grand total of 43 seconds in the fourth quarter. LeBron dropped 40 on the Pacers. Atlanta (yes, the Hawks) maintained its "best record in the NBA" status with a last-second win. Out West, the Clippers outlasted the Nuggets in a game that was not broadcast by the Clippers' regular announcers. The lesson: don't make jokes about Hamed Haddadi.

Bringing you up to speed on this and everything else from Friday night via NBA.com's Daily Zap:

Whose fault is it now? Who is going to have to take the brunt of the criticism for this 3-8 start? The Wizards had an easy target last season, placing the blame on their miserable start with a group of not-ready-for-prime-time players because Gilbert Arenas and Brendan Haywood, among others, were out with injuries.

But on Friday night, the Wizards sent a veteran lineup, featuring their dream starting five of Arenas, Haywood, Antawn Jamison, Caron Butler and Mike Miller, on the court against the Oklahoma City Thunder and got completely outplayed and outworked. The young guys --- JaVale McGee, Nick Young and Dominic McGuire -- sat for all but the final minute of an embarrassing 127-108 loss.

The Wizards never led at any point in the game and allowed three players on the Thunder to score 25 or more points, including Kevin Durant, the local kid who scored a game-high 35 points and continues to blossom before our eyes (and I swear he has grown another two inches or so over the summer).

Coach Flip Saunders rarely likes to criticize his players after losses, offering explanations for their poor performances. But he let 'er rip after this game, blasting his team for surrendering a season-high 127 points and allowing the Thunder to shoot better than 50 percent from the floor and beyond the three-point line.

"You score [108] points, you should win," Saunders said. "We didn't defend."

Saunders said that every time his coaching staff focuses on one weakness, the team forgets everything else that it has learned. After training camp, the team focused on rebounding and became a better rebounding team. They focused on defense and became a better defensive team through the first 10 games. But the past few practices, the Wizards tried to address their offensive woes, then decided not to play defense against the young and exciting Thunder. So much for that carryover from the big win against the Cavaliers.

"We focused on offense and we forgot all of our defensive concepts," Saunders said. "We have not evolved to be a total team, where we can grasp everything."

When asked if he should expect more from a veteran team, Saunders said, "You hope so, but they haven't shown any ability to carry over. That's what most disappointing. They scored, we came to our bench worried about our offense."

The Wizards certainly didn't have much trouble scoring, especially with Butler scoring 24 points, Arenas getting 23 points and Jamison adding 22 points and 12 rebounds. But the Wizards again found themselves in a 10-point hole at the start. They played uphill for the rest of the night. "We need to come out aggressive. I don't know what it is, but we need to get stuff going," Arenas said.

I don't know what they need to do to get off to better starts, either; if Butler needs to start going back on the Mountain Dew or something. But the slow starts are getting quite ridiculous. They were able to recover from a 17-point hole against Cleveland on Wednesday, but they cannot expect to do that every night. It is so much harder to play from behind in the NBA because the opposition is so good. No matter what an opponent's record is, this isn't like college, where you can coast against Division II school then magically flip the switch.

"You keep on doing that over time and you have to exert so much energy," Saunders said. "It's like a boxer, he gets hit with body shots and eventually, it's going to wear you down."

Wizards starters: Gilbert Arenas, Mike Miller, Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison, Brendan Haywood

Thunder: Russell Westbrook, Thabo Sefolosha, Kevin Durant, Jeff Green, Nenad Krstic

Line: Thunder by 4.

The Wizards are 0-for-Oklahoma City. They've never won at Ford Center, losing to the Thunder, 88-83, last season and twice against the New Orleans Hornets, who spent two seasons in Oklahoma following Hurricane Katrina. And, I know it doesn't count, but they also lost a preseason game against the Los Angeles Lakers here in 2005 in which Eddie Jordan was ejected.

Etan Thomas and Brendan Haywood certainly had their history together, but Haywood might want to give Thomas a hug for what he did this summer. Thomas was the only possible holdup on the Wizards' deal with Minnesota last June. By declaring that he wouldn't opt out of the final year of his contract, Thomas cleared the way for Mike Miller and Randy Foye to join the team. That never really was a concern -- especially since Thomas was due to receive a $1.2 million trade kicker -- but could you imagine what would've happened if Thomas nixed the deal? At the time of the trade, Thomas was the longest tenured Wizard with nearly 8 ½ years of service. With Thomas gone, that title now belongs to Haywood.

Coach Flip Saunders said he would give Fabricio Oberto another night of rest on his sore left hamstring, with the hopes that Oberto will available to guard Tim Duncan in San Antonio on Saturday.

The Wizards didn't have a morning shootaround in Oklahoma City on Friday. They also passed on the morning shoot before playing Cleveland, instead opting to arrive at the arena a few hours earlier to watch film and go over the scheme for the game. Several teams, including New York, Boston and Portland, have skipped selective morning shoots to allow their players more rest. Saunders said that is the reason for the change.

"I think rest is good," Saunders said. "I think it makes sense. Especially at home, because the more I'm around there, with the D.C. traffic and where these guys live. It would be different if our games were 7:30 or eight. Being a 7 o'clock game. By the time they get out of the locker room [after a morning shootaround], it might 12, 12:30. And by the time they get home it might be 1 or 1:15. And they got to leave in a couple of hours to come back, with the traffic. Sometimes, what you want to do with a team in late afternoon, it's fresher in your mind. Now, from that time on, they can start preparing for the game."

Saunders was asked if he's gotten more acclimated to D.C., especially after the team got to spend a rare full week in town. "I haven't learned it that much. I know Subway and Papa John's," Saunders joked.

Will somebody buy the man dinner? You guys got any suggestions for where Saunders can grab a bite in this town?

The Oklahoma City Thunder had the makings of a disaster at the start of last season, when it won just three of its first 32 games. But the Thunder was a second-half surprise under Coach Scott Brooks, going 20-30 the rest of the way -- including an 88-83 win over the Wizards last March -- and has continued to improve. The Thunder is already 6-6, with wins over Orlando, Miami and San Antonio and it is coming off a 108-94 loss in Orlando on Wednesday. Here's what else you need to know about the Thunder:

We don't stink anymore! (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)

1. Folks in Washington already know that Kevin Durant is a budding but low-key star, but few realize that he is also in pursuit of his college degree -- so are Russell Westbrook and fellow D.C. area native Jeff Green. He ranks sixth in the NBA in scoring at 27.1 points per game - with the help of his foul line shoulder shimmy -- but after being held to a season-low 12 points against Orlando, Durant said he doesn't think he can win the scoring title.

2. Etan Thomas is back home in Oklahoma, where as a high school star in Tulsa, he was known as "Derrick," even though his given first name is Dedrick. Thomas has a new book of poetry coming out next spring, but he already is expressing himself in his blog on Hoopshype.com. He touches a range of topics, including team trainers or doctors who "consistently misdiagnose numerous players." Who could he be talking about?

3. Second-year point guard Russell Westbrook is a feisty, athletic, combo guard who wears No. 0, but he's never had the chance to play against the man who helped inspire his jersey number choice. As a matter of fact, Durant and Green have never faced Gilbert Arenas, either.

Center Brendan Haywood is having a stellar season, which has been nearly overshadowed by the Wizards' slow start. Michael Lee writes about that -- and previews the game against Etan Thomas and the Oklahoma City Thunder -- for today's newspaper. On the blog, he recounts how DeShawn Stevenson got inside LeBron James's head on Wednesday night.

Dan Steinberg examines Earl Boykins's role in the return of Agent Zero and Boykins's uncanny strength. Not to mention the fact that Gilbert tweeted last night.

At the Washington Times, Mike Jones says the team hopes the win can serve as a building block to a turnaround.

Bullets Forever's Mike Prada offers a final wrap-up of Wednesday's win over the Cavaliers.

Truth About it reminds us: Don't call it a statement.

Around the League ...

The New York Times and Newsday are reporting that the Knicks have dropped their pursuit of Allen Iverson.

Last night the Hornets beat the Suns, 110-103 and the Jazz topped the Spurs, 90-83. Here's The Daily Zap:

DeShawn Stevenson could not stop himself from grinning on Thursday, a day after he managed to sucker LeBron James into some silly quest to dominate him in the fourth quarter. Coach Flip Saunders put Stevenson on James, and the move worked out splendidly for the Wizards, as Stevenson frustrated James and the Cavaliers offense went out of whack.

"What I was trying to do was make it a one-on-one thing, so that he would forget about his teammates," Stevenson said. "He's a good player and if he gets into that mode that he's shooting all the time, it's going to be hard for them to win."

James wasn't in that mode in the first quarter, as he handed out seven of the team's 13 assists in the period, and the Cavaliers built a 10-point lead. After three quarters, James had 28 points on just 13 shots, but he appeared offended that the Wizards would put Stevenson on him in the fourth quarter. Stevenson and James have had plenty of history against each other, dating back to the time when Stevenson called the league's reigning most valuable player "overrated" in March 2008. The feud ballooned to where rappers Jay-Z and Soulja Boy got involved.

James is better than 99.9 percent of the league, if not 100 percent, so it just seemed incredibly petty that he was so focused on proving a point to Stevenson. Heck, there are several players on the Wizards who are better than Stevenson. But that singular focus to dominate Stevenson backfired. He shot just 3 of 7 with no assists and one turnover in the fourth period, and continued to attack Stevenson even as the Wizards expanded the lead to 20 points (when James entered the game with 7:45 remaining, Cleveland trailed by just nine). His last two dunks were the angry kind, built out of frustration, with a left-handed jam causing some discomfort to his wrist.

The first time they matched up, James tried to shoot a three-pointer over him and missed badly. Then he batted the ball away and James again tried to shoot another three-pointer over Stevenson -- and airballed it. Stevenson said he was still kind of amazed that the officials later gave him a blocked shot when he jumped with James and cupped the ball in mid air. He appeared to give James a little body on the play, but it was ruled a clean play and James was flustered and livid. He even picked up a technical foul in protest.

"It feels good to get a whistle," he said. "Usually, he does get those calls, it goes in his favor. Last night, we did a good job on him and played him hard. I always like playing against Cleveland. It brings out the best in the whole team."

Stevenson said he thought the bobble-arm doll -- which waved a hand over the face -- that the Wizards gave to fans last night was "pretty cool." But he did notice that the beard wasn't as bushy. "They didn't give me the shaggy," he said. "It probably cost too much money to put that on; that little chin bar."