Sunday Shootaround Forget what you knew about the Wizards

BOSTON -- The early part of the regular season brings with it an overwhelming wave of emotions that rise and then crest as the league finds the equilibrium that will sustain it through the rest of the year. Optimism gives way to panic and doubts are overtaken by a giddy suspension of belief until teams finally reach a level of accepted performance.

So it was that the Washington Wizards could walk off against the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday with a buzzer-beater by rising star Bradley Beal that capped off a stirring comeback, and then find themselves overrun by a struggling Celtics team two nights later. On Saturday, the Wizards suffered a total meltdown down the stretch against the Hawks, getting outscored 16-2 in a wave of turnovers while Beal suffered an apparent shoulder injury. (There was no immediate update on his condition, although the Washington Post reported he had X-rays after the game.)

Even for this star-crossed franchise, the last 72 hours constituted an absurd turn of events. The weekend debacle notwithstanding, the general sentiment around the league is that this isn’t the same old Wizards. They’ve finally ditched their old grind-it-out style and embraced their destiny as a four-out, pace-and-space flavored squad led by their supercharged backcourt of Beal and John Wall. It’s a style that paid huge dividends in the postseason when they swept the Raptors and took the Hawks to six games in the second round.

Their commitment to the stylistic overhaul was evident in the offseason when general manager Ernie Grunfeld scooped up veteran wings like Alan Anderson and Jared Dudley and left the frontcourt untouched. Coach Randy Wittman has also embraced the approach, moving longtime starting power forward Nene to the bench and using Kris Humphries at the four opposite Marcin Gortat. Humphries is not a stretch-four in the traditional sense, but he worked in the offseason on expanding his range and has already attempted as many threes in five games as he did in his past seven seasons combined.

"It was the gameplan going into the playoffs and we saw that we could be successful playing that way," said veteran forward Drew Gooden. "We got guys coming in here that can play defense and shoot the ball from outside. We continued that in training camp teaching pace and space and it’s been working out for us."

There are tradeoffs to this approach. Turnovers have been a major problem and while their scoring has ratcheted up and their shooting has followed, the Wizards have slipped defensively and on the glass. There are adjustments to be made all over the floor and in various lineup configurations.

"We can’t worry about our offense, our offense doesn’t win games," Beal said. "Our defense does. We can’t play the way we want to on offense if we don’t get stops."

This is not a finished team. Their starting lineup has struggled in the early part of both halves. The five players on the floor who finished that epic comeback against the Spurs on Wednesday had Dudley in place of Humphries, which is likely their best lineup. On Saturday, Wittman had slender swingman Otto Porter at the four with three guards and Gortat. What the Wizards lack is a two-way forward a la Draymond Green who can guard up and still stretch the floor. Or maybe -- one can dream -- a player like Kevin Durant.

Having a backcourt like Wall and Beal allows the luxury of thinking big thoughts. This is their fourth season together and the duo is still young and still improving. Wall has turned the old scouting report on him inside out with improved shooting and decision-making and is on the cusp of becoming an All-NBA guard.

"There were ways and theories that people had on defending them and he’s disproven some of those," Celtics coach Brad Stevens said. "He’s a guy that can shoot the ball well enough. Certainly can go on streaks where he really make shots, but you have to honor it. He can shoot the pullup well. He’s phenomenal going left off the pick and roll because he’s incredibly explosive. He’s incredibly explosive going either way, but his passing off the right is ridiculous. You pick your poison with that guy."

Then there’s Beal, who scored 125 points in the first five games of the season and was shooting 50 percent from the field and from behind the arc. He’s cut back on the long twos that had been a frustrating staple of the Wizards’ offense and is attacking the basket off the dribble effectively.

"He’s getting older," Gooden said. "You’re looking at guy who came into the league at 18, 19 years old. Now he’s 22, he still has room to get better. I hear guys make comments, ‘I didn’t know he was that athletic.’ He wasn’t that athletic last year because he’s still growing. It’s fun for me to watch the development of these players at my age and what I’ve seen."

In any other year and under any other circumstance, the Wizards would have locked up Beal to a massive extension before his restricted free agency year. But with the possibility of Durant looming, no matter how remote, the two sides held off on agreement to maintain cap flexibility this summer. The idea is that the Wizards are building something special and there’s no reason to rush the roster construction process.

What a time to be a Washington Wizard. What a strange sentence to type, for this has been a historically snakebit franchise. They were the team that traded Chris Webber for Mitch Richmond, gave up on Rasheed Wallace and mishandled Michael Jordan’s swan song. Even their recent flirtations with relevance have been fraught with peril. The mid-Aughts squad led by Gilbert Arenas was endearingly weird, but it also locked itself into salary cap limbo and escaped the first round just once. And that’s just the recent history. The bulk of the ‘80s and ‘90s are best left forgotten.

Last year’s crew won 46 games and reached the second round of the playoffs for the second straight season. While no one’s hanging a banner for that mild achievement, it was still the most wins by the franchise since the great teams of the 70s. Additionally, while that 2014 team seemed happy to be there, last year’s bunch had a legit shot at reaching the conference finals. The past few nights aside, this team just feel different.

"We know what our goals are and we know what’s expected of us," Beal said. "We’re a targeted team. We’re not a low-tier team, we’re an elite team and people are going to come after us. We have the mindset that we’re a playoff team, but at the same time we’ve set goals that we want to get far in the playoffs. We don’t just want to get back to the second round like we have the last two years and I think we have a great opportunity. We came into training camp ready to go. Our focus is the best that we’ve been since I’ve been here and it’s only getting better."

Some of the credit for the Wizards’ new outlook on life can be credited to Paul Pierce, the Celtic icon who decamped in the District for one season and brought with him a wealth of veteran moves and attitudes.

"Trash talking," Beal answered when asked what he learned from Pierce. "It’s not cockiness, but it is at the same time. Just having that confidence that you’re the best team and you’re the best player on the floor."

"If you don’t believe in yourself, who will? That’s where it starts. Everybody else can’t believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself and believe that you’re the best player. That’s my mindset going into each and every game and as a team, that’s how we feel. We feel like we’re a better team against whoever we matchup against and we’re going to play that way."

We will find out a lot about the Wizards this season. The talent is there, health permitting. The system is in place. It’s time for their young backcourt stars to make their progressive leaps and for the team to take a step forward.

If 10 games is when serious analysis begins, five games is enough to examine some trends. While there’s some small sample size theater happening, that doesn’t mean these trends aren’t worth noting and exploring. Just remember the caveats. (Numbers from nba.com/stats and basketball-reference.com).

Stephen Curry isn’t fair: The reigning MVP had a True Shooting percentage of 73.3. That’s nuts. He’s averaging about 1.68 points every time he shoots the ball. That’s also obscene. Curry is the best player in the world at the moment and making a run as the greatest shooter of all time, if he isn’t already there. In the case of Curry and the Warriors, objectivity and raw numbers yield to the pure joy of watching a player and a team operating at an absurdly high level. This is the best show in the league right now and Curry is a wonder to behold.

The Clippers’ bench lineups have not improved: Few starting fives play as many minutes together as the Clippers, and for good reason. When they’re on the court, they outscore their opponents’ by better than 24 points per 100 possessions. The secondary groups? Uh, not so much. Despite several new offseason additions, the all-five reserve lineup that Doc Rivers often uses is giving up more than half of those points back. This is not a new phenomenon for the Clips and Doc has rolled with his starters as much as possible, even going back to his Celtic days. Short of mixing and matching groups more, one wonders if switching Paul Pierce and Lance Stephenson would have a positive effect.

The Blazers’ backcourt is their future: Heading into the weekend, Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum were averaging almost 50 points per game, which puts them into Wall/Beal territory. (Curry/Klay Thompson exist in their own backcourt universe, for now.) Lillard is no surprise. With four starters gone from last season including fellow All-Star LaMarcus Aldridge, everyone expected he would put up monster numbers. It’s McCollum who has been the revelation for this surprisingly spry bunch. The third-year guard shot almost 40 percent from behind the arc last season, so his hot shooting isn’t an aberration. What’s encouraging is he’s taken on more playmaking duties, which will A) help ease the pressure on Lillard to do everything and B) prevent a complete collapse whenever Dame takes his rest.

Don’t sleep on the Hawks: There were few better stories last season than Atlanta’s meteoric rise to the top of the Eastern Conference and fewer harder crashes than their conference finals sweep at the hands of the Cavs. Then they lost DeMarre Carroll in the offseason and the inevitable question arose: Could they continue to be the Hawks without one of their key starters? Yes and no. After an opening night loss to the Pistons, they’ve reeled off seven straight wins and look an awful lot like the team that blitzed through the first half of last season. The difference is that while last year’s Hawks relied so heavily on their starting five, this year’s version has received strong contributions from reserves like Thabo Sefolosha, Tiago Splitter and Justin Holiday. It’s the same system, the same core and the same coach, just with additional reinforcements.

Justise Winslow is already a good player: He’s not going to win Rookie of the Year and his numbers won’t jump off the page, but there’s a reason why Danny Ainge swung for the fences to try and move up in the draft to grab the Dukie. The kid is a winning player as evidenced by a strong net rating (+17.4 per 100 possessions). Winslow’s offensive game is a work in progress, but he’s smart and doesn’t make many mistakes. It’s on defense where he will make his name initially with size and versatility on the wing. If there was a Sixth Man award for rookies, he’d be the guy.