WASHINGTON — The celebration ceremony for John Wall’s and Bradley Beal’s first tandem All-Star honors didn’t exactly go as planned.
The Wizards’ backcourt stood together before last Thursday’s tilt against the Celtics in downtown D.C. with Wall looking particularly dapper … because he was in street clothes, still an untold number of weeks away from returning from arthroscopic debridement surgery on his left knee.
Then again, nothing about the last couple weeks has gone as expected for Washington since Wall’s injury, but that’s been a very, very good thing.
The Wizards are streaking — surprisingly — into the All-Star break, winners of seven-of-nine since losing their franchise point guard, and possibly finding that the extra spark they’ve been looking for has been sitting on their bench all along.
The Wizards are absolutely better with John Wall, and certainly could have used him down the stretch of the Celtics game, which they all but won. They are clearly lacking his ability to drive and create so in situations late in the shot clock (and the game).
Beal, who has seen the ball in his hands in most of those spots, is just 1-for-5 on shots in the final two minutes over the last three games, the one make coming on a dunk. But he’s played well overall, putting up 18 points and 5 assists or more in every game but one since Wall’s been out.
And he’s played really well with Wall’s replacement, Tomas Satoransky, who has been a revelation.
Since Satoransky moved to the starting lineup nine games ago, the Wizards have been +82 with him on the floor while outscoring the competition by 57 points overall, going 7-2 in that stretch. That includes wins over the Thunder and Raptors, with the sole losses coming on a road back-to-back in Philly and in overtime, in a game they should have won, against the Celtics.
He’s shooting 48.3 percent from three-point range, including an absurd 61.1 percent (11-for-18) this month. Perhaps more importantly, he’s dished out 53 assists to just 14 turnovers since taking over for Wall, including an 11-assist, single-turnover night in New York on Wednesday.
His offensive rating (an estimate of how many points players produce per 100 possessions) is currently an eyebrow-raising 127, easily the best on the team. It’s better than LeBron James (117) or James Harden (122) or Steph Curry (125). It’s almost certainly unsustainable, but it’s also a window into just how well he’s played.
And while nobody would ever accuse him of being an elite defender, he’s acquitted himself quite well against some of the league’s toughest scorers.
Satoransky clearly doesn’t have Wall’s quickness (who does?), but he hasn’t been trying to do any more than he’s capable of, which is still plenty. His height gives him the ability to guard multiple positions, as well as the will to play tough scorers with his hands straight up, and to recover and chase when he gets beat off the dribble. Russell Westbrook scored just 13 points on 18 shots in the Thunder contest, and until Kyrie Irving went off at the end, he was largely held in check in the Boston game.
A good show of anticipation here helped him jump in front of a pass to Irving, take it the other way and finish at the rim.
On Wednesday, he showed that recovery ability on this block on Jarrett Jack, which turned into a fast break outlet to Otto Porter.
Satoransky’s emergence has not only lengthened the team’s rotation — its biggest issue over the last several years — but also presented the potential to re-employ a strategy discussed last year, of shielding Wall at the off guard position for a few minutes a game to keep his legs fresher.
No doubt Wall will be fresher than in years past come playoff time simply given the time he’s missed, but Satoransky’s emergence may ease any anxiety about rushing Wall back into a full workload.
There are reports that the team is looking to sign an additional guard, in Wall’s absence, though it’s hard to see where the options that have been mentioned would offer clear-cut improvement.
Tim Frazier’s been perfectly serviceable in short spurts, putting up better than a 3:1 assist-to-turnover rate in about 15 minutes a game. He broke his nose against the Bulls and missed Wednesday night’s game, but should be back after the All-Star break.
The names mentioned include Ty Lawson and Derrick Rose. Lawson’s a longtime NBA vet, but has been playing in China this year and has always been a bit of a defensive liability at just 5-foot-11.
Rose, meanwhile, seems a shell of his former self. He’s having, by far, the worst year of his career amid lingering injuries, posting a ghastly -7.7 box plus/minus with the Cavs along with offensive (97) and defensive ratings (117) that would easily rank last among Washington’s rotation players.
If the team needs bodies to get through the next few weeks, that’s understandable. But right now, it certainly seems that the group of guards already on the roster will be the only ones contributing to the playoff rotation. Still, that rotation already looks a lot better than it did a couple weeks ago, without having made a single addition.
