Nets, Trail Blazers and Lakers in the Way of Wizards Changing Losing Ways

DeShawn Stevenson's phone started ringing off the hook shortly after he missed a pair of crucial free throws late in Saturday night's 102-98 home loss to the Atlanta Hawks and the veteran guard, who is trying to work his way out of a 30 percent shooting slump, has been getting advice from all quarters lately.

"My mom said I need to grow my beard back," said Stevenson, who played with a beard all of last season but cut it off over the summer. "Somebody else said I have to bring my hand gesture back, but to do that, I have to make a shot. So, when you're losing, that's how it is man. What I'm trying to do is stay focused, keep a smile on my face and be DeShawn and try to get my swagger back on the court. It will come."

As they enter a challenging week that includes four games in five nights, starting with tonight's contest at New Jersey, the Washington Wizards (2-12) are taking the same approach as their struggling shooting guard.

The schedule presents a unique opportunity for the Wizards to either start working out of an early-season hole or make things a whole lot worse.

Tonight's game against the Nets (9-7) will be followed by visits from the Portland Trail Blazers (12-6) tomorrow night the Los Angeles Lakers (13-1) Friday night and a trip to Chicago (8-9) Saturday night.

Next week features home games against the Detroit Pistons and Boston Celtics, so it won't be easy.

The first order of business has to be trying to get a handle on the Nets and streaking guard Devin Harris, who scored 34 points in a win at Utah on Saturday night and 47 in a win at Phoenix on Sunday.

Harris (25.3 points per game) and guard Vince Carter (23.8) are major reasons why the Nets have won three straight and have been much better than some predicted before the season. The Nets beat the Wizards, 95-85, in the regular season opener and Washington has lost six straight at New Jersey.

"Those two guys are performing at a very, very high level," Wizards Coach Ed Tapscott said. "They play with great tempo and it will be a challenge and a test to our team defense. It's very hard to stop a great player in the NBA one-on-one, so you have to take that as a team defensive challenge, so that's what we have to do."

After giving his players Sunday off, Tapscott put the team through a brisk practice yesterday with an emphasis on the kind of team defense that will be needed this week against dangerous playmakers like New Jersey's Harris and Carter, Portland's Brandon Roy, the Lakers' Kobe Bryant and Chicago's Derrick Rose.

"We had as a theme: us," Tapscott said. "I said that when an individual player scores, he doesn't score on one of our players, he scores on us. We're just trying to keep building team defensive concepts. When someone gets 20 points, he doesn't get 20 points on his matchup, he gets 20 points on us, so we're all accountable. A lot of times a guy is asked to go away from his man to help out, therefore someone has to pick up his man as well. So, the theme of the day was 'us.' "

Despite the rough start, captains Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison continue to emphasize the need to remain positive. The Wizards have led at the half in 10 games. In eight of their 12 losses, they have held a fourth-quarter lead. It has been a failure to execute at both ends of the court down the stretch of close games more than anything that has led to the poor record.

"You look at all our games and they're going right down to the end so it's not like we're going out there laughing and joking and getting blown out," Stevenson said. "We're doing the things we're supposed to do, it's just that in the fourth quarter, we're coming up short. We just have to keep going through Antawn and CB and then on a given night, guys like myself, Nick Young and Andray Blatche have to bring something to the table."

Wizards Notes: Darius Songaila has been sporting a shiner over his right eye for several days, the product of an accidental Oleksiy Pecherov elbow in practice. "Pesh sniped me," Songaila said. . . .

With four games in five days, Tapscott said he plans on closely monitoring guard Antonio Daniels, who has been bothered by soreness in his right knee and has missed six games. . . .

Former Wizard Jarvis Hayes is averaging 8.2 points on 42.7 percent shooting and 3.9 rebounds in 16 games with New Jersey, where he signed as a free agent over the summer.