WE Recap - Hawks vs Wizards

	1	2	3	4	FINAL
Wizards	26	28	10	24	88
Hawks	30	20	21	31	102

TOP PERFORMERS
Wizards			Hawks
Trevor Booker	PTS	18	Joe Johnson	PTS	34
Trevor Booker	REB	9	Zaza Pachulia	REB	10
John Wall	AST	9	Josh Smith	AST	8
Trevor Booker	STL	1	Jeff Teague	STL	5
Kevin Seraphin	BLK	3	Jeff Teague	BLK	2
John Wall	TO	9	Zaza Pachulia	TO	3
Roger Mason Jr.	+/-	-2	Smith/Teague	+/-	+22

Wizards Player of the Game

Kevin Seraphin. My colleagues will tell you for me to write that speaks loads for what I thought of his performance tonight. Aside from the 5 of 7 from the field, the 10 points, the 7 rebounds and 4 blocks, the biggest benefactor of yesterday's trade is Seraphin....for now. Nene is going to eat some minutes, whenver he finally arrives, but I'm happy to see Kevin taking advantage of the minutes. He doesn't look as lost and you can tell he's gaining confidence. 

WE’s to Watch/WE Spotlight

Josh Smith We hit on this one. Smith had a great statistcal game finishing with 23 points, 7 rebounds, 8 assists and 3 steals but the numbers don't tell the whole story. There are always moments in games that shift momentum, help players "swag" out a little more and Smith had a couple of those moments tonight. I've always been a big fan of Josh and enjoy watching him play, tonight was no different.

Trevor Booker Had it not been for Seraphin's performance the Wizards player of the game would have gone to Book. There's really just not a lot to dislike about him. Full time motor, seems to always be around the ball, plays physical, super fast....and on and on and on. By no means has Trevor "arrived" but to see his continual growth from where he left off last year is definately a positive takeaway from an otherwise miserable season.  

 

The Good

The Wizards showed up for a little over 24 minutes against the Hawks. Hat tip to Seraphin and Booker. That's. It.

The Bad

Washington came out of halftime in a coma. The 3rd quarter performance was terrible. 10 points? Seriously? There was no ball movement in the quarter and to the naked eye you would have thought the Wizards were playing pickup YMCA ball. For some reason Washington seemed to get away from what was working in the 1st half and reverted back to the selfish habits the Wizards displayed pre All Star break. Also on this list I'd like to include the "freeze-out" of Roger Mason Jr. He didn't check in until about 2 minutes left to go in the quarter and he never really regained the touch and feeling he had in the first two periods. Go to the well until the there is no more water. And that's all I have to say about that. 

The Ugly

Twenty two turnovers. 22 TURNOVERS! I'm not going to beat this to death because I know John Wall will tell you himself that 9 turnovers from him is unacceptable but 37 points off the turnovers is what killed Washington. You can't spot another NBA team  20 plus turnovers and expect to win. As with most things in basketball it's not just the number of times but more importantly when the turnovers happen during the course of the game. The Wizards don't have the margin of error that the upper echelon teams do in the leauge and they literally gave this game to the Hawks. Wiz need to chalk up the loss, get some rest, build off the good things they did against Atlanta and on to the Grizzlies on Sunday.