WASHINGTON (CBSDC) — The Washington Wizards are free falling.

At 33-23, they’ve won just two of their last 10 games — prior to which, they were 31-15 — and, dating even further back, they’ve lost 10 of their last 14 since losing at home to Oklahoma City in overtime on Jan. 21.

Randy Wittman has grown wearisome with his players’ poor shot selection and lack of defense; the catalyst to frequent befuddled post-game outbursts – like on Sunday after the coach watched his Wizards’ 8-point early-third quarter lead over the Pistons transform into a 17-point defeat.

“Terrible close. Awful,” he said of his team’s finish. “And it’s the same thing we talk about, closing out quarters. We took three of the God-awfulest shots you can take, all threes, like we’re smoking hot from the threes, where we made one last game, six tonight.”

Randy Wittman has never been closer to completely losing the locker room as head, interim or assistant coach of the #Wizards. — Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It) February 22, 2015

Wittman insists there’s “no splintering” from inside his locker room, according to Jorge Castillo. “I don’t sense that,” he said. “It’s a matter of playing through tough times and doing it with, like I said, we have a time when the effort is not what it’s got to be.”

Bradley Beal, who has missed the last five games, tells Castillo he thinks the Wizards “lost that hunger.”

“We lost that chip on our shoulder, so to speak,” he said. “I think we had a great record at one point, then we just got comfortable.”

Tenuous as the rapport may seem on the surface, this anecdote from television play-by-play announcer Steve Buckhantz — who travels with the team — paints a different picture.

Buckhantz doesn’t “see all of that stuff that I’m hearing people say,” he told The Junkies Tuesday morning.

He also sees some things that people never see. “For instance, I’ll share one with you,” Buckhantz said. “I don’t think I’m giving away anything trade, or anything that’s gonna get me in trouble, which, Lord knows, I’ve done before.”

“After games, on the plane — without fail — almost every time when I walk back to my seat, John Wall is sitting on the arm rest with Randy Wittman,” he explained. “And in some cases, Randy has his arm around him. So that tells me a couple of things: 1) that they discuss what’s going on after a game; 2) that they’re very close, close to the point where John will come back and sit with his coach. I mean sit down there right next to him.

“When I saw that for the first time, I thought, ‘Well, he’s just back here sharing …’ I think it was after a win, and they were happy or whatever. But then I started seeing it after all games, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘These guys have a communication skill between them. That’s good. That’s positive.’ So, does that make the biggest difference in the world? I don’t know. I’m just saying that there’s certainly no rift then; they want to work together to get the best results they can. And I really like that, and I don’t see any animosity, I don’t see any discontent or any of that stuff yet.”

Still, behind the scenes, there are signs of disrepair hidden in plain sight in the Wizards continuing defeat.

After the Wizards’ 38-point loss to the Cavaliers, Marcin Gortat and Paul Pierce’s explanations of the loss strayed in two very different directions.

“You just got to man up and play defense,” Gortat said on Friday. “Each one of us needs to step in and play one-on-one defense. Simple as that. Just stop your guy in front of you. That’s it. You can’t rely constantly on help, and help, and help, and stuff like that. You just got to man up and play defense, and do whatever it takes to win your matchup.”

Pierce saw it very differently.

“That’s what basketball is. I don’t know what March is talking about,” he said. “Because when you play a team game, you play help defense. The best teams trust each other on defense. And that’s what we got to get. There’s no trust on the defensive end. If it was an individual sport, oh well, but this is a team sport and we rely on our help defense. And as you see, we don’t have no extremely great individual defenders out there, so we rely on our effort and on our team defense, and our togetherness, and it just wasn’t there. So I don’t know what he was talking about.”

With 26 games to play — beginning with a home game Tuesday night against the best team in the league, by win percentage, the Golden State Warriors — the Wizards’ schedule won’t let up much any time soon.

Follow Chris Lingebach and 106.7 The Fan.