Wizards’ Randy Wittman hoping the third time’s a charm

When Randy Wittman stepped in as a midseason replacement for Dwane Casey in Minnesota on Jan. 23, 2007 — nearly five years to the day before he would be asked to assume the same role in Washington — he thought the job required a massive overhaul of schemes, systems and styles. To make it work, he had to make it his, he thought. He simply made everything too complicated.

“The last time, I tried to invent the game of basketball,” said Wittman, who didn’t last two full years with the Timberwolves, “and I learned from that.”

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Thrust back into a similar position after the Washington Wizards dismissed Coach Flip Saunders after 2¹ / ₂ jagged seasons, Wittman’s debut was more about simplifying the game plan and forcing the players to give him what he will always demand: an honest, concerted effort.

Without the benefit of a full practice, his players responded with a high-energy game built around a ball-hawking defense that forced turnovers and an up-tempo offense that kept the Charlotte Bobcats on their heels.

The Wizards pulled off a decisive 92-75 victory over the depleted Bobcats that was far from aesthetically pleasing throughout, but yielded the ultimate result in a results-driven league.

“I’ve been in the league 30 years as a player and a coach,” said Wittman, who was originally drafted by the Washington Bullets in 1983 but was immediately traded to the Atlanta Hawks. “Ownership, management, they can tell you all the things — it’s about winning. It’s what this boils down to. We’ve got to win. Are we going to win games at a clip that Oklahoma City is now? No. But we need to win. And win the games that this team is supposed to win and play like that.”

Though they dominated from the opening tip on Wednesday at Verizon Center, the Wizards (3-15) still showed many of the flaws that have plagued them throughout this disappointing campaign. They matched a season high with 23 turnovers and had several defensive lapses that a better team could have easily exploited. But Wittman realizes that for a team with a number of problems supported by a poor record, the recovery is not going to be immediate.

“It’s like any bad habit you have. If you’re a smoker, you ain’t going to drop those cigarettes the first day,” Wittman said. “I’ve got to help them kick some of these bad habits. That’s all it is. We’ve fallen into playing a way that’s not conducive for us to win. So when I see them pull out a cigarette, I’ve got to take it out of their mouth. That’s basically what I’m trying to do.”

Wittman has a career coaching record of 101-207 after previous stints in Cleveland and Minnesota. He led the Wizards to a 1-2 record filling in Saunders last season, as Saunders dealt with the poor health and eventual passing of his mother, Kay.

Saunders was not a confrontational coach, choosing to dole out discipline in more passive-aggressive ways. Wittman doesn’t take the same approach, which he said helped them become an effective tandem, especially in Minnesota, where they worked together for all but two years between 1994 and 2005 and advanced to the conference finals in 2004.