John Wall Fed Up With Wizards’ Poor Defense

After the Washington Wizards’ loss to the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday night, John Wall says they can’t win unless they improve their defense.

The Washington Wizards lost for the fourth time in five games, falling to the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday night. They did so without Bradley Beal, who’s now out after suffering a broken nose and a concussion against the Celtics on Monday,

John Wall had something to say about his team after the loss:

Now, that statement may be a little drastic, and perhaps Wall is just attempting to light a fire under his teammates, but he’s not far off.

Related Story: 25 Best Players to Play for the Washington Wizards

In the past five games, the Wizards have allowed opponents to score 109 points per game, per NBA.com, which is the seventh-worst in the league. That’s bad, especially considering four of those five games were at home.

The Wizards have been particularly bad at guarding the perimeter. Here are three different Kyle Lowry threes that each came from defensive breakdowns in Tuesday’s loss to the Raptors:

Here, Otto Porter doesn’t commit at all to stopping Kyle Lowry in transition, and Lowry takes advantage of it with an uncontested three. There’s just no excuse for this. The Wizards have actually been pretty good at defending in transition, only allowing 11.9 fast break points per game, per NBA.com.

That makes them ninth in the league in that category, but backing up to nearly the free-throw line when picking up a point guard in transition is unacceptable.

Here is a simple pick and roll, nearly at half court. Nene hedges way too hard and it breaks down the whole defense. He doesn’t get back to his man quickly enough, Porter then takes his man, when Ramon Sessions should have cut off that pass to Bismack Biyombo, and then Sessions is forced to cover Porter’s man or he’ll give up an easy layup.

That left Lowry open for a wide-open three. This could be avoided with a simple soft hedge and recovery by Nene on the initial pick.

This is the most frustrating one of all. Wall gets caught sleeping with his back turned to his man and Lowry gets yet another open first-half three-pointer. It’s not even as much of a defensive breakdown as it is just a lack of concentration. These are all avoidable if the Wizards played defense with any sense of focus.

Wall definitely has a point when he criticizes Washington’s defense, but he needs to make sure he includes himself as part of the problem.

The Wizards give up the highest three-point percentage to opponents in the league at 38.2 percent, per NBA.com. Washington seems to not have any sort of strategy defensively, whether they’re guarding the transition or defending in the half court. Perhaps Wall is pointing to head coach Randy Wittman when he says that the Wizards defense is “probably the worst defense in the league.”

Related Story: 25 Best Players to Play for the Washington Wizards

We may be very close to seeing a coaching change in Washington if the Wizards don’t turn things around.