TORONTO — The Washington Wizards reached the midway point of the 82-game regular season but couldn’t leave the bad habits from the first half behind.
After the loss dropped the Wizards to 13-28, several players shared their vision of improvement for the second half of the season. Not surprisingly, defense topped the wish list.
“Obviously, the defensive end,” guard Isaiah Thomas said. “Communication, trust. I think those are things that we as players can control and we can continue to get better at. Offensively, we’ve really been able to get whatever we want. So I think the second half of the season, if we can focus in and lock in more on the defensive end as a collective group, I think that’s only going to help us.”
Pick just about any defensive metric, and the Wizards rank worst in the NBA. Besides building a roster around a collection of players who do not have a reputation for being good defenders — former G Leaguer Gary Payton II may be the team’s best option on that end — the Wizards have the additional challenge of dealing with constant change because of injuries.
On Friday, guard Jordan McRae left the game in the second quarter after severely twisting his left ankle. McRae left Scotiabank Arena with his left foot protected by a walking boot, a troubling sign for any player. Furthermore, before facing the Raptors, Coach Scott Brooks revealed that rookie forward Rui Hachimura, who has missed the past 16 games with a groin injury, is not likely to return before February.
At least three players have recently come back from extended absences: Bradley Beal, Davis Bertans and Thomas Bryant. However, the team has since gone 1-3 while trying to reacclimate the veterans. During these four games, opponents averaged 120.8 points.
Earlier in the season, 120 didn’t seem all that unbearable because the Wizards had the firepower to try to beat that number. But the offense has been trending the wrong way — the Wizards now rank outside the top 10 in offensive rating — which could also be a product of the changing rotation, according to guard Troy Brown Jr.
“It’s just guys coming back from injury, and that’s really hard because we’ve been playing a certain way without certain guys,” Brown said. “So now it’s hard to implement that back in, especially with the way that we were playing. It wasn’t — I would say — very systematic. It was like guys were just doing what they do. That’s just me being real.
“Now we’re just trying to get back to a groove, I guess,” Brown continued, “and just learning what guys do and back to letting them play their basketball.”
Similar to Thomas, Brown said trust between teammates needs to improve in the second half of the season.
“For me, I feel like it’s just trust. We’ve got to trust each other, and so we’ve got to know that our teammates are going to be there for us,” Brown said.
While teammates have focused on the symptoms of the losses, Beal took a broader picture. Through the next 41 games, the Wizards need to improve on “everything,” he said.
“We’re not perfect in nothing we do. We got to be better on both ends of the floor. We got to be better as a team, as a unit. Starting with myself,” Beal said. “I’ve got to be better, and we just got to be ready as a unit. Whatever it looks like, no matter what, we’ve got to go win games. We’ve got to scrap and claw, fight. We got to do whatever it takes, and I got to lead us and do a better job at that.”
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