Reggie Jackson to make debut with Pistons Sunday against visiting Wizards
The All-Star break didn't appear to do much good for the fading Washington Wizards, leaving Randy Wittman baffled.
Sunday's game in Detroit could be another setback given the Pistons' improved play and the addition of Reggie Jackson (3 p.m. pregame, 3:30 tip-off on FOX Sports Detroit).
Wittman's patience was understandably in short supply Friday.
His Wizards (33-22) had just finished losing by 38 points - the team's biggest home defeat in 40 years, and its latest in a series of setbacks against top Eastern Conference opponents.
So the coach allowed for all of three words to be uttered by the reporter asking the opening question at Wittman's news conference following Washington's 127-89 loss to Cleveland.
The query began with the phrase, "It looked like," and Wittman interrupted to say: "We were still on break?"
His point: Instead of seeing the Wizards come out of the week-plus All-Star layoff with a sense of urgency, he watched players sleepwalk through a high-turnover, poor-shooting, lax-defense performance.
"They hit us in the mouth, right from the jump ball, and we couldn't recover from it," Wittman said, removing his horn-rimmed glasses and crossing his arms.
"I've got to find a way to get our nastiness back, our edge back," he continued. "We didn't defend. We didn't take anything away. That's what we do. And when we don't, we're not very good."
They haven't been very good for quite some time.
Led by All-Star point guard John Wall, the Wizards started 19-6 a year after getting to the second round of the playoffs, sparking talk about their proper place in the East's hierarchy. But since then, they've gone 14-16.
And against some of the conference's best, Washington has been at its worst, going 1-8 against Atlanta, Toronto and Cleveland.
"We know we lost to those guys, but we know what we can do when we don't turn the ball over. Every time we lost to those teams, we turned the ball over a lot and they did whatever they wanted," said Wall, who had four of Washington's 18 turnovers Friday.
It didn't help that the Wizards were missing shooting guard Bradley Beal for a fourth consecutive game with an injured right leg.
Still, Wall thought some teammates "looked like they were fatigued and tired" against Cleveland, and he mentioned in passing that when the Wizards returned to practice after the All-Star break, "A lot of guys were like, `Why were we running so much?'"
Another big problem: Washington went 1 for 16 on 3-point tries, while allowing Cleveland to go 14 of 33.
"It was a mix of a lot of different things today," center Marcin Gortat told reporters. "I don't think you guys have enough space on the recorders to mention all of them."
The Pistons (22-33) have won five of eight, including a 100-91 win over Chicago on Friday as Greg Monroe and Caron Butler each scored 20.
Detroit hasn't reached the playoffs since 2008-09 and appeared to be in for another lost season after a 5-23 start. The Pistons, though, have gone 17-10 since for the third-best mark in the Eastern Conference and are one game out of eighth place.
Jackson will be in uniform after being acquired Thursday from Oklahoma City. He is averaging 12.8 points and 4.3 assists, though he had been limited to 19.4 minutes per game over his last 12 amid reports he was a source of strife in the Thunder locker room.
"We've got big guys who can bang, we've got shooters and we've got guys hustling all over the floor," said Jackson, who watched from the bench Friday as he wasn't cleared to play. "I can't wait to be out there."
Wall had 27 points and 11 assists in a 107-103 home win on Nov. 12 and is averaging 30.0 points over his last three meetings.
The Wizards ended a four-game skid in Detroit with a 106-99 victory Dec. 30, 2013.
