Dec 26, 2015; Brooklyn, NY, USA; Washington Wizards head coach Randy Wittman coaches against the Brooklyn Nets during the first quarter at Barclays Center. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

Washington Wizards Must Start Winning At Home And It’s On Wittman

For bad teams to finally break through, they need to find ways to get wins at home. Once that’s accomplished, those same teams need to gets wins on the road. That’s typically how the transition works.

The Washington Wizards reached the former portion of the transition a few years ago after finally starting to become a somewhat dominant team at home. The problem is, they couldn’t win on the road. Last year, they won at home and on the road when it mattered most — in the NBA Playoffs.

Given how well they performed in the playoffs, we all assumed that the Wizards would continue to win games at home and improve on the road. Of course, that hasn’t been the case.

Washington is the only team in the Eastern Conference besides the Brooklyn Nets and Philadelphia 76ers, who are widely considered the worst teams in the NBA, to have a losing record at home.

On Monday night against the Portland Trail Blazers, who were coming off a blowout loss to the 76ers, the Washingon Wizards were embarrassed at home. That’s a problem.

If the Wizards want to seriously make a run towards the playoffs, they have to start by securing wins at the Verizon Center. You’d think that games against the Los Angeles Lakers and Blazers would be considered wins on paper, but the Wizards have managed to confuse everyone this season.

I tried to think of numerous parties to blame for their issue.

Could you blame the Verizon Center crowd for not really creating a home-like atmosphere?

Maybe.

But, ultimately the blame should be put on the team, or more importantly the person who’s supposed to prepare the players: Randy Wittman.

While the lack of enthusiasm inside the Verizon Center is an issue, I don’t think it negatively affects the product on the court.

It is what is it: the Washington Wizards fans in attendance are often there to watch the opposing team.

The Wizards have never had great fans and it probably doesn’t help that they’ve been losing for what seems like eons. Regardless of the atmosphere, though, the Wizards have to perform well wherever they play, because, well, they’re being paid to do so.

It’s on Randy Wittman for them to show up every game, and lately that obviously hasn’t happened.

Losing to the Blazers is a perfect example of why the coach has been failing to do his job.

I’m unaware of the team’s pregame preparations, but whatever Wittman has been doing clearly hasn’t been working. Instead of hitting the Blazers hard right out of the gate, the Wizards look lethargic and had a number of defensive breakdowns from the get-go.

They simply looked like they didn’t want to be there. Again: it’s on the coach to prepare the players and he’s failed to do so.

I’m not an NBA coach nor do I know how to fix the issue, but Wittman has been put in similar situations in the past. He has to figure it out quickly, otherwise this could be his last season in the nation’s capital. Losing at home is one thing, but dropping games to lottery-bound teams is another. Wittman has to do a better job of preparing his players as there’s no other way around it.