Alex Sarr struggles in return as Wizards lose 14th straight

What is up, and welcome back to another episode of the Wizards Podcast.

I'm yours Greg Finberg, and in today's episode, we're going to be recapping another

loss to Detroit Pistons, another loss for the Washington Wizards.

This is 14 in a row.

It's too straight against the Detroit Pistons.

You guys can hear from me, unfortunately, after the last Pistons loss, you didn't miss

much.

Bob Carrington at 30, he was really good, not much doing other than that.

The Wizards got beat by a lot, ended up losing their 13th straight.

Then they come two days later, back at home, Sam Oppone, and pretty similar result.

You know, no kidding, I'm unfortunately collapsed long.

He's going to be out for a bit for Detroit, but it really didn't change much in this

game.

You know, Washington kind of got blitz from the jump.

They were down 25 points pretty early in the second quarter, pulled it back with a really

good second quarter.

We're all right at the beginning of the third, but Detroit kind of steadily pulled away

and pulled away and pulled away.

And then by the end of the game, you're looking up in 20, 25 point game, really, honestly,

a boring, non-competitive second half.

The NCAA tournament is on.

You know, I was watching some of the games during the Wizards game.

It's hard not to, when the product is as bad as it is.

It's March Hoops, like it's not going to be anything riveting.

Yeah, there were some cool place, Bob Carrington had a poster and then took down Duncan Robinson

as he was falling.

You had Justin Luke Savage, Paul Reed, Ron Holland, Getting Face-to-Face, was some extra

curricular, you know, in some words.

But apart from that, not a lot going on, you kind of knew what the result was going to

be.

It was just kind of a slow climb to get there, but we're there and we're going to talk

about it.

I want to get to some injuries before we get into this game.

Obviously, same couple of people that are always out, Russell, Whitmore, George, Davis,

obviously, they're all out, Leaky Black, Julian, Reese, unavailable tonight.

And obviously, Trey Young, who's missed now, I think, three games in a row, or actually

two games in a row with that quad contusion.

Of course, he was out again tonight.

You had Alex Sar, returned from injury and Bologna Baldy, again, missed his second

straight game as well after he had a really good showing the other night.

I want to get to their injuries because a lot of people saw them and when I saw them

on the injury report, this is for Bologna and for Sar, I didn't know what they meant.

I've never seen this combination of words, I've never even read these words in my life

until that point.

And so obviously, I was a little confused when I was looking at the injury report and sort

of seeing that for Alex Sar, he had a left big toe capsuleitis, which I think is just

sort of stress that's being put on that toe and he's been out with the big toe already

this season.

And so maybe it's a re-aggravation.

But again, it didn't cause him to miss too much time, it was the second game he missed.

The first was injury management for the hamstring.

I guess the second one then covered this toe injury, but left big toe capsuleitis.

I doubt anybody listening has ever heard of that.

I certainly haven't until then.

And then Bologna Baldy, who again, missed the second straight game tonight against Detroit,

was out with right retro, cow, keniel, versitis.

I probably butchered that as well.

He can't blame me because I've never read it in my life, but that for those who aren't

familiar, this is from Google, is inflammation of the fluid-filled sack between the right

heel bone and the Achilles tendon, which often causes pain, swelling, redness at the back

of the heel, etc.

So I mean, very, very interesting, obviously, injuries, and you had all the jokes, obviously,

the wizards just making up words, making up injuries to get to the end of the season

to keep tanking.

I get the jokes, obviously, these seem obviously legit, and I'm sure they are.

But that's why those two, again, were out for a bit and saw returned tonight, but very

interesting injuries, obviously.

In terms of tonight, saw returned to the starting lineup, but you did it.

You had an omission at point guard, but Bologna didn't still start it, but he moved down

to the two.

And you had to try Johnson sort of playing a three, or at least a little throwback to

him, like those three guard lineups under Scab Brooks, that I'm sure everyone loved.

You had Sharif Cooper get his first NBA start tonight and I didn't think he was awesome

in the first half.

It wasn't really too effective, but had a stretch in the second half in the third quarter,

where he had eight straight points for Washington, got to the cup twice, got to a spot in the

mid range a couple of times, and very crafty, very skilled to get to the lane, get to the

room, and finish as well as he does for his size.

He got the start alongside Bob Trey, Will Riley, who was good as well tonight, and Alex

Tsar.

And I mentioned Sharif had a decent game.

This was arguably Alex Tsar's worst game of the season.

He just looked, he looked slow.

He didn't look like he was in his rhythm.

And again, he had just missed the extended period of time, came back for a little bit, and

then back out again for two games.

I'm sure it's been tough for him to find his groove, but his first came back from injury.

He actually had a really good game.

His first two games back were really good.

And offensively, this game was not arguably his worst offensive game of the season.

Started O of five, you know, had a couple blocks, but nonetheless, Duren was giving him

fits.

I mean, I'll say this for Sarr, you didn't have a good game.

A lot of his shots were self created, and they had to be a lot of face ups, a lot of

sort of just barreling his way in to try to draw contact or get close enough to the

rim, forcing some outside jumpers, because it wasn't going his way on the interior.

He didn't have a point guard, like Trey Young, to set him up.

And that was helping him in the last couple of games, but now it's a lot of self created

stuff.

And he was struggling.

Duren's a really good player.

Bigger guy that sort of build kind of gives Sarr some fits on occasion.

And tonight was another instance of that.

He started slow.

It didn't get much better.

I think it was one of eight in the first half.

I missed all four or all five of his shots in the second half.

Finish was two points on one of 12 from the field, 0, 3, from three.

Again, thought a lot of the shots were settles, a lot more.

It had to be self created, so some stuff was forced.

Stagging offensive sets, especially in that first quarter, didn't help.

But certainly not one of Alex's better games this season, a couple turnovers as well.

On the defensive end, again, he had a couple blocks, but again, still got bullied by a bigger,

stronger force in Duren at times.

And we've seen that as a sort of common theme with Alex Sarr, where he sort of struggles

to go up against those guys that just have the size and the strength to really cause

him issues and his length can't really overcome some of the shortcomings there.

So obviously a big offseason for him to get in the weight room and try to grow in that

regard.

But definitely not the best showing from Alex tonight.

Apart from that, again, Wizards were stagnant.

The first quarter was awful.

One of the worst quarters you've seen all season, no cage, really no problem for Detroit

35 to 14 at the end of the first quarter.

And then Tristan Vuksevitch comes in and the whole game sort of flips in.

And how often can you say that where Tristan comes in, the defense starts getting stopped,

the offense starts excelling.

It's usually one side in offensively.

But tonight it was kind of clicking in that side quarter, 13 points in that state on

five to six from the field was really good, provided some really good minutes and you

looked up and it was a seven point game.

Really good stuff from Tristan to cut that lead down from 25 to seven.

He kind of had lined, you think you scored eight or 11 points in a row for Washington.

It was a 16 nothing run to get them back in the game.

So really good work there, really enjoyed his standing finish with 21 on seven away from

the field made all three of his threes.

It's another game he had won against Boston as well where he really couldn't miss a really

efficient night.

It wasn't forcing shots was getting fouled.

I enjoyed it.

I really did.

There was also a fun moment where Tristan's had a couple of these like, you know, heated

exchange moments throughout his career.

But I really, I really thought tonight he kind of showed a little bit of toughness.

I mean, you know, he said a really hard screen in the second quarter on Ron Holland and

Holland kind of got pancakes by it fell to the ground was down for a second.

And Paul Reed, I get it sticking up for your teammate just sort of ball goes up and instead

of blocking out Tristan just runs over and two hand shoves him.

Tristan goes flying Paul reads a big dude and Tristan gets up and as he gets up to go

to Paul Reed, Ron Holland gets up to come at Tristan for the hard screen.

You got some, some words being exchanged.

Nothing came of it.

I think Paul Reed just got a tech and Tristan made a free throw, but that was fun.

That was interesting to watch.

It's like, you're kind of, you're sitting there, you're watching the game, have a sleep

really.

You're preoccupied with some March madness just because nothing much is really happening.

You know what the result is going to be and then you sort of jolt up.

That's what I did.

I was like, all right, you know, a little interesting.

If you want to see the video of that, I put it on on my, on my Twitter page so you can

check that out, but that was an interesting moment.

Then another interesting moment came, I think later in that quarter, when Bob Carrington

caught a lob, I think from Tray Johnson or Shreve who I don't know who threw it, but

caught a lob from the three point line, two hands, don't sit on Dunkin Robinson and Robinson,

not his fault, not intentionally, was just kind of standing under the rim.

Bob comes down, he's about a land on Robinson and so he kind of grabs Robinson by the shoulders

and takes him down with him sort of around the neck, a full takedown and nothing malicious

there.

They were viewed it.

I think it was ruled just a common foul on on Dunkin, so Ann won, but made the free throw.

But Durham got a tee after that because he came in and Tray Johnson was in his face,

talking smack until he kind of shoved Tray, get a tee there, it was of another fun moment,

it was a pretty boring game, the big moment for Bob, you had the whole bench, that was

sort of T-Shallam was pointing, Champagne had the same face, he had the other night with

just like in all that Bob put someone on a poster, not really known for dunking, not

known for getting to the rim, but the last three games, he's been very aggressive and

I thought again tonight, you played a good floor game, not the most efficient night from

him.

But I still enjoy what he did overall, only four of eleven, one of six from three, but

four assists as well and so I thought he was alright, the three turnovers is not the best

to see, just because he went about 50 plus minutes without turning the ball over, which for

someone like Bob, who that's been his biggest struggle as a point guard, it was nice to see

that and towards the end in the second half he kind of struggled with the ball, but first half

thought it was good, I wanted to highlight that because he struggled with turnovers for a good

part of his career, but again, not about night tonight for Bob, big poster, which was pretty fun

as well. Apart from that, halftime 60 to 52, pretty close game by it by all standards and then

kind of gets away from them in the third quarter, I mentioned Sharif Cooper had a solid quarter

with H-Trade points, saw or struggled yet again, yet some moments from O'Reilly again tonight,

thought he was again really good, made four threes in the first couple of quarters, again four

of eight from three, really starting to shoot the ball well, 15 points in 40 minutes and that's

what you like to see, play the man, play the young guys and he played a lot tonight, especially because

you know Trey Johnson is going to be on the demonstration probably the rest of the year, it's been

over a month, since he came back from that ankle injury and still on a minute restriction,

not surprising, we know why, but obviously you like to see a little bit more of Trey in these

fourth quarters, doubt it will happen, but again, good, good game for Riley, thought he got

a couple of his teammates and involved the only one assist is surprising because I thought he

broke down the defense, he penetrated, beat his man off the dribble and then made another good pass,

made it a couple times tonight, so I thought overall, I thought he was good as well, 15 points and

he's been good the last couple of games, really pouring it on, that's 15 plus points in his last

three games, the two before that at 21, he's playing nearly 40 minutes a night, over his last

three games, he is shooting nine for 19 from three, so nearly 50% from three over that stretch,

that's really good to see, you like to see him getting out and running in transition, he had a

particular play tonight, made a couple of contested threes, which you like to see, but shot

clock winding down, kind of a grenade gets thrown to him in the corner, he doesn't panic, kind of

takes it, spins baseline, gets between two defenders and gets the layup, probably an N1, no call,

but it's the patience, it's the maturity for a player, 20 years old, not even one year into his

career, to be able to calm himself down and really get to the buck, he gets to work there, so

again, I thought he was going to, especially in that third quarter, was only down 10 and

to ring the four, so again, like I mentioned, didn't let that get away from them, but then in the

fourth, they get blitzed, it's really non competitive, 20 point deficit pretty early in the quarter,

and again, this was one of the games where you don't really pay too much attention to what's

going on at a certain point, I'm obviously watching, I'm paying attention, but for people that are

tuned out, checked out of this season, I watched the last 12 minutes of this game, and I'm taking

notes, and I'm like, what am I doing? It doesn't matter to most fans what the score is, it matters

that they lost, it doesn't matter what the stats are for some guys, all the matters is that they're

losing, and again, it's tough for me to even find stuff to talk about on these, because I feel

like I was thinking to myself today, actually, I was like, what do people who cover teams that

are actually trying to win basketball games do on these paths? They got to have so much material,

because I don't, I feel like I never actually talk about the result, I talk about that,

they lost, and they talk about the tank standings, and that it's good that they keep losing,

but I don't actually talk about them blowing a game, or them falling apart in the third quarter,

and why that's an issue. None of that stuff has talked about, because it just, it doesn't matter.

Point blank, like being honest, none of that matters for this team anymore. No one's getting

concerned, because they're getting blown out in the second half. No one's concerned that,

you know, certain guys aren't starting games well. All the matters is that some rookies are playing,

good, some young guys are playing all right, there's some potential, they're with the young core,

and they stay healthy, and they keep losing. So I'm sure next year, these pods might be a

little bit more interesting and fun, because we'll be talking about, oh, they lost this game,

and I think they should have won it, and here's why, here's what went wrong, instead of just,

yeah, they lost again, here's a rundown of all the people that I thought played well, a couple

cool plays, some injuries, and some information, and stuff like that. Just a thought I had today,

but maybe when they're trying to win games, it'll give me something else to talk about on these,

but again, Wizards kind of get routed, and in the end, they end up falling to the Detroit

Pistons 117-95. Bob Jarrington, I talked about him earlier, he exited with about a minute and a

half left in the game. It looked like he got his hand caught. I don't know if it was a prior injury,

I don't know if it got caught in like a jersey or just a finger that got jammed, but he got a

Winston Payne, he kept playing, but was taken out shortly after, went to the locker room.

I haven't seen any update yet in terms of his status. I mean, I can look now on

on Twitter to sort of see what I can't see anything from the injury in terms of Bob Jarrington,

so I'm sure of a wait and see, maybe he'll be on the injury report, maybe he won't.

Pretty sure he just played in his 150th straight game to begin his NBA career, which is fascinating,

and it's a really cool straight. It seems like it's something that he really

would prefer to keep alive, and so good for him, hopefully he can use to say healthy,

but that's something to monitor as it goes on. Another thing to monitor, this seems like another

recurring theme on this pod. The standard Justin Champany DNP coach's decision, even though he is

one of the five best players on this team that is currently healthy. Again, like I mentioned,

even though that he is healthy, we've seen this a lot against the jazz and against the pelicans,

didn't play for no reason other than their tanking, and then they're going to come out,

Brian Keith, you asked him would say, yeah, we just wanted to get some other guys an opportunity.

You wanted to tell me that you wanted to give 24 minutes to Anthony Gill as an opportunity,

the 30 plus year old Anthony Gill over the 24 year old Justin Champany that's under contract,

and we'll be here a part of your team that you didn't want to trade, even though other teams

offered four or five teams were offering really good draft capital. You can't, that's just wrong.

You know, they can sit there and say that they're tanking. We know that I like watching Justin play

unfortunate that we kind of get that taken away this late in the season. You want to hold on

some things that could be fun, and he's just not going to play in some of these games,

but we understand why. I keep mentioning it's kind of a compliment to him and to how far he's

come, how good he's been this year, but again, he was a DMV coach's decision. He was healthy,

not on the injury report, just did him play, and we all know why, obviously, but pivoting to,

again, why I a lot of you guys listen, I'm sure, is these tank standings.

Looking at the scores before we begin to the standings, because there's some big tank games

tonight, the bulls are going to lose, which it doesn't really, I don't think they're even a threat.

I don't even know if the Wizards at this point, I think that they've played 69 games, so 13 games left.

They're probably not going to catch the bulls. The pelicans have won a lot recently. They're currently

up one with eight minutes left in the four over the pelicans or over the clipper, sorry. So maybe they'll

win. Now would be another way to get them farther away from Washington at 25 wins. And then you have

the Utah Jads currently up 50 to 42, late in the second quarter on the books. That one's in Utah,

and Yannis is not playing for the buck. So that is a really good spot in the way they're playing.

It looks like Utah might win that game. And if they do, that will be big as well. You have

Sacramento as the late game against Philly, possible win for spot for them. We'll be monitoring that.

It would be huge if they did, but looking at the standings real quick, you obviously have

Indiana 15 losses in a row. They have 15 wins. The Wizards at 16, Brooklyn at 17, Sacramento at 18,

and then Utah at 20. If they win tonight, 21, that's five more wins than Washington ahead of their

date with the Wizards coming up. That would be great. And then you got Dallas at 23, New Orleans at 24,

Memphis at 24. So the Washington's in a really good spot. They have lost 14 in a row, and they got

OKC coming up on Saturday. They got at the Knicks coming up on the second night of a back-to-back.

I believe on Sunday, those will be pretty lopsided losses, I believe. And then that'll put the

Wizards like I called a week and a half ago at that 16 straight loss, which would tie a franchise

record. Funny enough, it would be the I believe fourth time over the last three years that they've

hit that mark, which is insane. And I do believe all four would come under Brian Geef. Take that from

what it's worth. But they're going to get there. Believe me, they will. And that Utah game will be

to break that that record in in college news. I feel like I've sort of touched on everything. I

really can about the Wizards tonight. There's just not really much to talk about. Pretty boring,

pretty boring game for the most part. You obviously have March madness tonight. Cameron

Brewster's team won. They duke almost lost, but they found a way. I did not think he was good.

And against that level of competition, you would expect him to dominate. And he dominated

physically. And on the glass, I thought he was good. But there were a lot of moments where

he had one-on-one, he had post ups, and he didn't impress me. And I think a lot of people know

what you're going to get with the can boozer. He's going to be a really solid NBA player. I think

if you want to guy a true true power forward, it's kind of a lost start in the league. But if you

want a true power forward, that's really going to get rebounds and kind of clear out the paint,

can take on a bruising four, bruising three, an undersized five. I think that he's a good

player to pick. And obviously, the count is that's why he had 22 and 13 tonight. But it was just

four of 11, one of five from three, and 14 of his 22 points were at 13 of them were at the line.

Five turnovers against Siena. Obviously, he's had great games, and you don't want to just hand

pick some performances that you don't think are too good. But tonight, today's performance

sort of reaffirms some of the concerns that myself, and I'm sure some other Wizard's fans,

have about him and now his game will translate at the next level against longer, more athletic,

more physical, bigs. We shall see if that's the case, but I did not think he did too well to

improve that stock tonight. But on the flip side, AJ DeBanza lost to Texas BYU's now out. But

he was the entire BYU team. Almost, I went to this game thinking that, you know, I'm between

AJ and Darren Peterson for the top pick. I'm still a little undecided, but I'm leaning towards

AJ just because he was the entire team for BYU had 35 of their 71 points, 11 or 25 from the

field 10 boards. Could not be stopped despite being double team, despite the whole game plan

being towards him. And he still got to the bucket, got to his spots, made some NBA level mid-range

shots and tough layups. He looks like a number one pick. And so if you're the Wizard, you're watching

this March madness. It's like your team sucks. They're going to they've lost 14 in a row. They're

going to probably lose at least 16 in a row, you're soon. But watch Darius Acuff. And that's

like the floor, right? Oh, an Acuff, a Keaton wadler, a Kingston Flemmings. Like those guards are

like the absolute floor. If you fall to the pick, pick six or pick seven or even pick eight,

you're going to get an unbelievable talent in this in this draft. And even if you get a top pick,

you're going to get someone that could potentially change your franchise. You can't really go

wrong. Obviously you prefer the one over the eight. But the draft is awesome. And the Wizard's

fans, I think you're you're not watching good product from your team. But watch the March madness.

Watch these guys play. Maybe that'll get you a little more motivated and excited to kind of

get through this rebuild, get to the draft in June. I'm going to kind of see that light at the

end of the tunnel because it's close. Only 13 games remaining for this team. It's going to be

a long 13 games, it seems, but I'll be here. I don't know why, but I will to recap the rest of

this season. So I'll be back. I believe on Saturday, maybe not Saturday. Maybe I'll be back Sunday

to just combine those two. But most likely to break down two losses, one against OKC and one against

the Knicks. That'll be the 16th in a row. But that's going to do with this episode of The Wizard

Podcast. Next, listen as always, go with.