Wizards shoot themselves to 0-6
The Washington Wizards are a professional basketball team. You'll just have to take my word for that because I really couldn't point to anything from tonight's 92-76 loss to the Charlotte Bobcats to support that assertion. The Wizards were blown out -- yes, blown out -- by the Bobcats in Charlotte tonight, as the Wiz could manage to hit only 29.8 percent of their shots from the field. This happened against a Bobcats team that was last in the NBA in defense, giving up over 106 points per game.
Only 11,139 showed up to watch the Bobcats host the Wizards and after watching the game you have to wonder how they got that many into the building, considering it was the hapless, painful-to-watch Wizards on the card. It was Charlotte's first win over the Wizards since January, 2011. The Wiz swept the series last season 4-0.
The Wizards were still in this game early in the fourth quarter, but promptly went 9 minutes and 11 seconds without hitting a shot from the field. Washington had cut a 16-point deficit in the third quarter down to seven points in the fouth, but the prolonged shooting drought -- the cherry on top of a sundae made out of bricks and cow excrement -- soon turned the game into a laugher. [Wizards fans laugh so they don't cry all the time.] After Cartier Martin hit a jumper with 10:58 left in the game, the Wizards hit only three shots -- all of them in garbage time and two of them by deep reserve big man Earl Barron.
Quick forward Trevor Ariza, who has struggled mightily on offense all season, led the Wizards with 19 points, including 12 in the first quarter. Ariza didn't shoot the lights out, though, missing 11 of 18 shots, but he was by far the best the team had tonight. No one else on the team scored in double figures and the starting guards -- AJ Price and Bradley Beal -- combined to hit 3 of 23 shots from the field.
The bench, which has kept some games close this year, was no help, hitting only 10 of 33 shots. Jan Vesely didn't take a shot in ten minutes off the bench, but he still managed to get in on the action, missing all four foul shots he took. The Wizards, as a team, hit under 66% of their shots from the line tonight.
There are a lot of words that could be written about this game [many of them NSFW], but what's the point? The Wizards are terrible. They may be the worst offensive team I've ever seen without John Wall and Nene in the lineup. Even Kevin Seraphin [5 points, 1 rebound] could do nothing tonight.
Congratulations to C Brendan Haywood, who led the everyone with 11 rebounds tonight. The Bobcats are not world-beaters, but at least they're not the Wizards. Haywood must feel very lucky to have escaped this horrific train wreck of a team.
The Washington Wizards are a disgrace. Owner Ted Leonsis and GM Ernie Grunfeld should be ashamed of themselves.
