The Wizards and Hawks have each held serve at home so far in their first-round series. Here's a look at what went well and poorly for Washington in Game 4 as the Wizards look ahead to Game 5 on Wednesday.
WASHINGTON —Here’s a look at what went well and poorly for Washington in Game 4 as the Wizards look ahead to Game 5 on Wednesday.
WASHINGTON — This is the latest installment of WTOP’s highly irregular feature — 2 Up, 2 Down — examining what’s happened in the first four games of the Washington Wizards’ playoff series with the Atlanta Hawks.
With home-court advantage, the Wizards are theoretically in good shape in their first-round matchup. Each team has won its home games, with two of the final three remaining games taking place in D.C. But Washington missed an opportunity to take control of the series in a Game 4 loss in Atlanta, letting good early play unravel and not matching the Hawks’ defense down the stretch. Let’s break it down …
(Photo by Daniel Shirey/Getty Images)
Photo by Daniel Shirey/Getty Images
1 Up: Early ball movement and distribution
Led by John Wall’s superior speed and decision-making ability on the fly, the Wizards finished the regular season sixth-best in the NBA with 23.9 assists per game. They stayed right on that average in their first two games of the series, collecting 28 and 22 in two home victories. But the ball got sticky in Game 3, with more isolation and less ball movement creating good looks. They created just 16 assists against 15 turnovers and shot just 41.6 percent from the field Saturday.
Monday was better, at least early. Washington players assisted on seven of their first nine made shots and the Wizards were over 50 percent shooting. But as the ball movement slowed, so did the scoring, with a 35-point opening quarter leading to a playoff-worst 15-point second quarter, the first time Washington has been held under 20 points in a quarter thus far this series. Washington finished with 19 assists, 10 of them from Wall. The Wiz need to try to recapture the form they showed early in Game 4 and keep from falling back into isolation play.
(Photo by Daniel Shirey/Getty Images)
Photo by Daniel Shirey/Getty Images
2 Up: Three-point shooting
The Wizards were a 37.2 percent three-point shooting team in the regular season, third-best in the Eastern Conference and eighth-best in the league. They entered Game 4 shooting 27.8 percent from deep, worst of the 16 playoff teams. But even with some late misses, Washington returned to form, hitting 12 of 31 shots from deep. This goes hand-in-hand with the aforementioned ball movement.
Bradley Beal had five of the three-point makes, but Bojan Bogdanovic and John Wall each hit a pair as well, which is crucial moving forward. While Beal is the go-to guy from behind the arc, other Wizards have to establish themselves as threats to keep the floor spaced for the offense and need to knock down open shots when they get them. If the Wizards can hit near 40 percent in future games, they’ll put themselves in good position to advance.
(Photo by Daniel Shirey/Getty Images)
Photo by Daniel Shirey/Getty Images
1 Down: The bigs
It’s easy and not incorrect to single out Markieff Morris here as the primary culprit, but one of the biggest swings in this game came on Marcin Gortat’s inability to read the pick-and-roll. Gortat let Dwight Howard sneak behind him on consecutive possessions and bring the house down each time with thunderous dunks off feeds from Kent Bazemore. That was part of the 21-5 second-quarter run that put the Hawks back in front.
But back to Morris. His early and persistent foul trouble shows, simply, that his matchup guarding Paul Millsap is untenable. Despite a somewhat slow start, Millsap finished with 19 points, nine boards and seven assists, a +6 to Morris’s -10 in a game separated by 10 points. Morris looked a half-step behind the action all night, which is troubling moving forward. Kelly Oubre Jr. doesn’t possess the same kind of size as Morris and gives up too much size in a defensive matchup against Millsap, who has the low post game to back him down to the basket. The Wizards were outscored 104-64 in the paint combined in Games 3 and 4.
(Photo by Daniel Shirey/Getty Images)
Photo by Daniel Shirey/Getty Images
2 Down: Crunchtime defense
The problem with playing a team like the Hawks comes in tight games late, especially if you’re trailing. The Wizards have the offensive weapons to score, but as we saw Monday night, they sometimes lack the ability to get big stops. Even though Bradley Beal poured in a game-high 32 points, he finished just +3 because of possessions like one with less than five minutes remaining, where he sagged down under a pick and left Dennis Schroder enough time to pen him a handwritten thank you note before hoisting up an uncontested three that all but put the game away.
Washington’s starting five has been nearly as good as any lineup in the league this season. But it’s also been on the floor 19.5 minutes per game, the most of any individual lineup in this year’s playoffs by more than a minute-and-a-half per game. That makes it tough to defend down the stretch, when legs aren’t as fresh. That unit has actually yielded a higher opponents’ effective field goal percentage (48.9) than it has posted (47.1). Whether or not fatigue is a factor, Washington has to step up their energy in the final minutes.
(Photo by Daniel Shirey/Getty Images)
