Another loss on Monday night – another high-scoring one, as well – has the Wizards at 4-22, two of those wins against teams in the boat of bad records as they are in Charlotte (7-18) and Detroit (2-25 and on the verge of setting an NBA record for longest losing streak ever).
As part of Wednesday’s Beltway Blitz, a solo Danny Rouhier was joined by Monumental Sports Network’s Chase Hughes, who agreed with Danny that record aside, the Wiz have looked better of late.
“I think over their last three games, I'd probably argue this is the best three game stretch of the season so far,” Hughes said. “It began with the win against the Indiana Pacers, which is their lone victory against the team with a winning record, but they played very well against the Suns and were fairly competitive against the Kings for a bit. But overall, I think particularly on the offensive end, if you look at the individual numbers up and down the roster, guys like Kyle Kuzma, Tyus Jones, Corey Kispert, they've been playing really well lately; the defense continues to be an issue, but as they showed against the Pacers, some nights they can get hot enough offensively to pull out a win.”
Jordan Poole was 8-for-13 from three in that pacers game, and that’s not going to happen every night, but to Danny, Poole looks a lot more lately like the guy everyone thought the Wizards were getting.
“I think in the aggregate is probably the best three game stretch he's had this year, too,” Hughes said. “Against the Pacers, he had maybe his best game of the season, and he was also really good against the Kings. Not quite as good against the Suns, but overall the three-point shooting has really stood out, and asking guys on the team what’s been different, they kind of said that he's taken the same shots he has all year but they're just going in, so maybe it’s a matter of him seeing the ball go through the basket early on in games and sort of building from there and his teammates playing well, which maybe that's helped his cause by giving him a little bit more space on the court, or it could just be the sample size playing out.”
On the other hand, Kispert was a focal point of the offense late last year and looked good, but in his current role as a part-time starter and sixth man, he doesn’t look as comfortable to Danny, but things can only get better?
“Yeah, we've seen this trajectory for him throughout his career so far where he tends to be really good in the second half of seasons,” Hughes said. “Injuries have kind of opened the door for him those first two years, and then this year he's gotta play on the second unit behind Poole, so there's a little bit more overlap this year when everyone's healthy. He’s not playing a lot more minutes than he did last year and not taking a lot more shots, but we've seen the efficiency tick upward, and I would say in terms of the first half of the season, he's played better in the first half of this year compared to the first half of the last two seasons – so if he's got another strong finish in him, then I think overall, we're gonna see this season as a step forward, just like we have the last few years.”
And as for first-round pick Bilal Coulibaly? Danny is impressed with what he’s seen so far, and so is Hughes.
“I think he’s been the biggest positive for the team so far, and you're not alone in being surprised. I've been surprised, and even he himself said that he's surprised, particularly with three-point shooting,” Hughes said. “I asked him recently how he’s doing it, and he said that after the draft, he got with his shooting coach and changed his shooting mechanics, his hand placement on the ball and setting his feet; he’s shooting with a different motion than he did last year in France, and he had about two months to make those changes, and you're seeing that it pay off. Once he started getting comfortable knocking down threes, we've seen him open up his offensive game more by trying to attack off the dribble, and I think the Wizards being second in pace is really suited his strengths, because he's very athletic and he's very fast from baseline to baseline – so when they're in the open court, that's really a great situation for him, and I think he's thrived in that. And then defensively, we've seen him rise up to some pretty big challenges like Luka Doncic and Trae Young and Jayson Tatum; he's taken on some pretty difficult tests and I think he's passed them pretty well this year.”