WASHINGTON — After 14 lead changes and too many twists and turns to count, Wednesday night’s game between the Washington Wizards and Oklahoma City Thunder came down to one play in the final seconds.
A play that Wes Unseld Jr. mismanaged.
With the Wizards ahead by two points and the Thunder about to inbound the ball from the sideline with 6.1 seconds remaining, Unseld did not put his players in the best positions to succeed.
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Washington paid a heavy price for that mistake.
Unseld assigned Rui Hachimura to defend the inbounds passer, while Bradley Beal guarded Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Monté Morris matched up against Kenrich Williams. Before Oklahoma City’s Josh Giddey inbounded the ball, Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams forced their defenders to switch — a move that created a huge mismatch in Oklahoma City’s favor. Morris, who is 6-foot-2, had to guard Gilgeous-Alexander, who is 6-foot-6 and had already torched Washington for 39 points on 13-of-21 shooting.
Gilgeous-Alexander caught the inbounds pass, took several steps toward the basket and then stepped back behind the 3-point line to hoist a potential go-ahead 3. Gilgeous-Alexander released the shot just above Morris’ outstretched left hand, and the ball swished through the basket with 1.1 seconds left.
The Thunder did not relinquish their 121-120 lead.
During his postgame news conference, Unseld blamed himself for that play.
“We weren’t matched correctly, and that’s no one’s fault but ours — and mine,” Unseld said.
In retrospect, if he had the opportunity for a do-over, Unseld said it would have been better to put “more size on the two guys and put a small on the ball.” In other words, Unseld should have had Morris guarding the inbounder and had at least one taller player involved in the switch so Gilgeous-Alexander would have been guarded by someone better suited to effectively contest a jump shot.
That Unseld would place the blame on himself for the error speaks to the kind of person he is. Among the NBA’s 30 head coaches, you would be hard-pressed to find someone kinder, more levelheaded or more down-to-earth than Unseld. He’s a gem of a human being.
At some point in the coaching profession, though, strength of character must be supplemented by results. Winning matters. So far, 97 regular-season games into his tenure as the Wizards’ coach, Unseld cannot yet point to many tangible achievements.
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Last season unraveled. After he guided Washington to a 10-3 start, one of the best starts in franchise history, the team finished with a 35-47 record, far out of the playoff hunt.
Unseld avoided significant scrutiny because he faced factors out of his control. A team-wide COVID-19 outbreak that began in mid-December decimated the Wizards’ depth. Hachimura missed the first half of the season while he dealt with a personal matter, and center Thomas Bryant missed the first 41 games as he recovered from reconstructive knee surgery. There was an avalanche of injuries, none more significant than Beal’s season-ending wrist injury in late January.
Unseld arrived with an impeccable résumé. The Wizards hired him after he compiled 16 seasons as an NBA assistant coach, the last one as the Denver Nuggets’ associate head coach. He had a well-earned reputation as a defensive specialist.
The defense faltered last season, finishing 25th in points allowed per possession.
This season’s Wizards own an 8-7 record, which is pretty impressive considering Beal missed five games because of a rough bout of COVID-19 and the team’s most disruptive perimeter defender, Delon Wright, has been sidelined since Oct. 28 because of a hamstring strain. The defense has improved. The Wizards rank 13th in points allowed per possession.
Wednesday’s game, however, was not one of Unseld’s better nights.
With Beal able to play again, the Wizards’ starters looked unstoppable on offense for most of the first half. Washington piled up 67 first-half points — a team high for any half this season — and sank 14 of its first 20 3-point attempts. Unseld’s players moved the ball unselfishly, and they recorded 23 assists on their first 25 field goals. Those are stellar numbers that would have been the envy of any team in the NBA.
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That success did not last. The Thunder made an adjustment at halftime. Oklahoma City went to a small-ball lineup and did not play two starters — Giddey, who is 6-foot-8, and Aleksej Pokuŝevski, who is 7 feet tall — a single second during the third quarter. Just as important, Thunder coach Mark Daigneault also decided to switch on every screen 1 through 5.
“They made a great adjustment,” Wizards forward Kyle Kuzma said.
The Wizards had no immediate answer. They scored only 20 points and turned the ball over seven times in the third quarter to let the Thunder back in the game.
Double-digit leads are fragile these days in the 3-point-happy NBA. Sometimes teams go through dry spells when shots simply don’t fall. It happens, and it shouldn’t be considered a calamity.
But Wednesday’s third quarter was something more than merely missing shots and turning the ball over. Washington players acknowledged that, after Oklahoma City’s halftime adjustment, they didn’t quite know what spots they wanted to get to and didn’t quite know what actions to run.
“It was them putting the pressure on us, and we didn’t really know how to react and what to run and kind of got a little stagnant,” Wizards center Kristaps Porziņģis said.
To be sure, the Wizards have enough veteran players that they should not have been quite so confused. Combined, Beal, Porziņģis and Kuzma have 1,363 regular-season games under their belts.
Still, having problems with switching defenses has been a recurrent problem under Unseld. In a game in April, the Boston Celtics employed their elite switching scheme to devastating effect and demolished the Wizards 144-102.
Knowing that the Celtics and other teams have caused the Wizards fits with this tactic in the past, Unseld and his coaches should have deployed a Plan B for their offense sooner than they did Wednesday night.
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It’s important to note that this was Game 15 of a regular season, not Game 7 of a conference finals. Perhaps the Wizards will learn from the loss to the Thunder and emerge better for it. It’s certainly possible that Wednesday’s defeat will have evaporated from everybody’s memory by the time March and April come around.
At the same time, though, it’s imperative that lessons are learned now, before it’s too late.
In the NBA, no one is more responsible for a team’s performance on a given night than the coach and the team’s two or three best players.
Beal, Porziņģis and Kuzma weren’t perfect Wednesday.
But when it really mattered, Unseld was less perfect than his players.
(Photo of Wes Unseld Jr.: Tommy Gilligan / USA Today)
