Spurs Expose Wizards' Flaws on 'Bad Night'

Wizards interim coach Ed Tapscott gave his team yesterday off after it completed a back-to-back set with an ugly 98-67 home loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday night. That was probably a good idea, because there wasn't a whole lot a coach can say to his team after a performance like that one.

The 67 points were a season low, the Wizards shot 33.3 percent from the field, and they were completely taken apart defensively by the coolly efficient Spurs, who shot 50 percent, racked up 26 assists and made 13 three-pointers.

It was nothing less than a clinic put on by one of the league's best teams, and the Wizards had a front-row seat.

"This is not a time to harangue," Tapscott said after his team had its modest two-game winning streak snapped, absorbing its second-largest margin of defeat on the season. "We'll have the day off and get back to work Monday."

The nature of the loss was particularly startling because it came only 24 hours after the Wizards played solid basketball in a gritty 107-96 win at New Jersey. It dropped the Wizards to 1-11 in the second game of back-to-back sets this season.

That is one of the most obvious examples of how this Wizards team has been hurt by the absence of key players and by its reliance on young players who are just cutting their chops at the NBA level.

"It feels like we take two steps forward, two steps back," Tapscott said. "Sometimes that happens. It was a bad night, just didn't happen."

Three-Pointers Key

Saturday's loss highlighted two other areas where the Wizards have struggled all season: three-point shooting and perimeter defense. While the Wizards missed all nine of their long-range attempts, the Spurs connected on 13 of 27 long-range attempts and also feasted on the Wizards' defense by making a batch of jump shots in the 15- to 19-foot range.

The Wizards rank 28th in three-point percentage defense (opponents are shooting 38.5 percent from three-point range this season) and 29th in three-point shooting themselves (32.3 percent).

The problem at the defensive end is pretty simple: The Wizards do not contain opposing guards very well -- veteran point guard Mike James had his hands full with Spurs point guard Tony Parker Saturday night, for example -- and that consistently forces the wings, forwards and center to help.

Once that happens, quick ball movement often leads to a wide-open shot. The problem is illustrated by the fact that Wizards opponents average a 24.3 assists per game, an NBA high.

One of the beneficiaries of that quick-ball-movement approach Saturday night was former Wizard Roger Mason Jr., who scored a game-high 25 points on 9-of-15 shooting with five three-pointers.