Washington Wizards Small Ball Defeated By Dallas Mavericks

Even though more teams have begun to focus on playing small-ball in the NBA, playing without a center is tough. Marcin Gortat is currently in Poland spending time with his ailing mother, leaving Randy Wittman and the Washington Wizards with virtually no options at the center position.

Nene, Kris Humphries and Drew Gooden are all injured. Ryan Hollins and DeJuan Blair are bodies without much skill.

Washington succeeded with a John Wall, Ramon Sessions, Gary Neal, Otto Porter and Jared Dudley lineup against the Phoenix Suns on Friday, but that didn’t work against the Dallas Mavericks down the stretch.

The Mavs forced the ball inside to Dirk Nowitzki who often had a guard defending him in the post. That forced Washington to double-team the future Hall-of-Famer, leaving Dallas’ three point shooters open.

Prior to tonight’s game, I considered “containing Wesley Matthews” a key to victory. Matthews was shooting under 40 percent from the field and just over 30 percent from three. After suffering an ACL injury last season, Matthews received a max-contract from the Mavericks, who expected DeAndre Jordan to join the shooting guard in Dallas as well.

Instead, the Mavericks got a recovering Matthews — who is having the worst season of his career — for $70 million.

Given players’ tendencies to suddenly have scoring outbursts against Washington, I knew that Matthews was destined to have the best game of his life in the nation’s capital.

After all, before tonight’s game he was awful.

So of course.

Why not?

Not only was Matthews having the game of his life, but he almost single-handedly beat Washington. He scored 36 points and knocked down 10 (!!!!!) three point shots. Whenever John Wall scored a clutch basket to cut the lead down to a manageable amount, Matthews found a way to hit a ridiculous three.

Charlie Villanueva, famed Wizards killer, added 10 points in 14 minutes off the bench. It was just that sort of night for Dallas.

Despite John Wall’s valiant effort — he scored 28 points, dished out 10 assists and stole the ball five times — the Washington Wizards were just too small to compete against Dallas.

Dallas outrebounded the Washington Wizards by 13. Otto Porter grabbed 11 rebounds, but wasn’t able to help the team on the glass when they needed it most. Really, there wasn’t much the Wizards could do over the outstretched arms of Jeremy Evans or Zaza Pachulia late in the game.

Unfortunately, the Washington Wizards might not have an answer to their problem right now.

Gortat is still in Poland and likely won’t return until Wednesday night. The Wizards will take on the Miami Heat tomorrow on the road. The Heat have Hassan Whiteside and Chris Bosh. The Wizards have Hollins, who played five minutes tonight, and Blair. Yikes.

Um, what’s the point of signing a 7-footer if he can’t play? Hollins started the game and was quickly yanked out, never to be seen again. He’s not good. His contract is non-guaranteed. It might be time to find another big man who can actually, you know, do things. /Rant over.

To make matters worse, John Wall banged knees with Evans with just minutes remaining in the game and wasn’t able to put weight on his leg. He was carried off the floor. Thankfully, he was able to put weight on the leg in the locker room afterwards. There isn’t an official diagnosis, but let’s hope Washington dodged a bullet.

Wall is playing at an MVP level right now, so it would be a shame if he had to miss an extended amount of time. He’s finally found his rhythm.

So, there you have it. The Washington Wizards are going to live and die by the super small-ball lineups until Gortat returns. Hopefully the rest of the big men return soon as well. On to Miami we go.