Washington Wizards: 5 takeaways from 2017-18 NBA season

5. Team philosophy got lost in the postseason

Outside of their first two home games, the Washington Wizards played a bad brand of basketball. It’s ironic to find out that the team quietly extended president Ernie Grunfeld‘s contract through the 2018-19 season after a postseason performance like this.

Strategy seemed lost on this group in the 2018 NBA Playoffs as they lost 4-2 to the Raptors. Despite playing zero regular season games, Ty Lawson ended up playing 19.3 minutes per game in the playoffs. Tomas Satoransky, who grew a ton this season, played just 10.0 minutes per game in those six contests.

John Wall averaged 39.1 minutes per game despite sitting out half of the regular season with a knee issue. Bradley Beal averaged 35.9 minutes per contest. By the end of the series, fatigue set in for the Wizards’ superstars and there was no backup plan for it.

Lawson didn’t play a bad series. He averaged 5.8 points, 3.0 assists and 2.6 rebounds per game, but surely Satoransky deserved more than 10 minutes per game in the playoffs. He proved himself a ton during the regular season, averaging 10.4 points, 5.8 assists and 4.4 rebounds per game as a starter. Yet, the most he was given all postseason was 18 minutes in an elimination game. It was hard to watch the Wizards fall apart like that after the season had its moments.