Well, that was exactly what we expected.  Two of the best offensive teams, and simultaneously, two of the worst defensive teams, put on an offensive show last night.  Unfortunately, the wrong team won.

Westcoastwizard was there, so we might as well start with his thoughts.  (emphasis mine)

[By the way, if your comment is this long, you might as well start a diary.  That way, I can promote it, and you can get credit as the author of the post.]

In less than six minutes tonight, Michael Ruffin was -14.  As much as we'd like to credit Eddie with a phenomenal substitution at the end of the Seattle game, the truth is that was pretty much dumb luck.  Anyone can defend better than Antawn Jamison, including Brendan Haywood and Andray Blatche.  Putting either one of those two into the game would have had a similar effect.

Here's the thing.  Small ball does not equal no-rebounders-ball.  I can't stress that enough.  Darius Songaila had 7 rebounds in 30 minutes.  Andray Blatche had 7 in 16 minutes.  Yet Blatche sat on the bench for the entire fourth quarter, while Songaila played every minute of it.  Songaila played well offensively, but he's a liability in too many other places on the court.  There's a reason why, despite scoring 17 points on 8 of 12 shooting, the Wizards were outscored by 9 points with Songaila on the floor.  Put in Haywood instead, or, if you want to go small, put in Blatche.  Songaila just kills the Wizards defensively and on the glass.

You'll notice I didn't say anything about Jarvis Hayes.  That's because I thought he played really well tonight.  He shot well from the field and at least tried defensively, despite picking up six fouls.  The Wizards were +10 when he was on the court.  If he plays like that every game, I have no problem with him playing 20 minutes every night.  Problem is, those performances are few and far between.

With all this being said, there's a much larger problem here, and it has nothing to do with substitution patterns.  The Wizards proved once again that they desperately need a lock-down defender on the wing.  Golden State was getting to the basket, and there's very little a big guy can do when he constantly has to rotate to pick up the guard penetrating.  Baron Davis and Monta Ellis were getting to the rim at will, and when they weren't scoring, they were dropping it off to Andres Biedrins, who had 24 points mostly on dunks.  For all of Gilbert Arenas' scoring, he is an awful defender that takes shortcuts on screen and rolls and doesn't move his feet.  DeShawn Stevenson was also terrible tonight, and I fully support Eddie benching him the entire fourth quarter.  Whenever the Wizards needed a key stop, they couldn't prevent Davis and Ellis from getting past them on the perimeter.  That's something substitution patterns can't fix.

Luckily, the Heat lost last night.  Unluckily, the Clippers, tonight's opponent, absolutely spanked the Jazz last night.  It'll take a much better defensive effort to win tonight.