WASHINGTON – The same issues are plaguing the Washington Wizards through eight games: They can’t rebound, and they allow too many open threes.
Those struggles continued in their 120-105 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday. They were out-rebounded 57-41, including 19 offensive rebounds, and allowed the Hawks to shoot 50% from three in the first half — more than 10 percentage points above their season average.
But don’t tell that to Washington’s coach, who pointed to his team’s improved rebounding over the previous two games after Wednesday’s loss.
“If you’ve watched us, you’d know we were the number one defensive rebounding team the last two games,” Brian Keefe said. “Give them credit … We’ll take a look at the film, and we’ll get better tomorrow.”
The issue with Keefe’s statement is that the Wizards lost the rebounding battle in one of those games (55-52 to the Charlotte Hornets) and grabbed as many rebounds (87) as their opponents (87) over that stretch.
Trae Young has an easy solution. He referenced Taurean Prince’s iconic answer when discussing Washington’s rebounding struggles. “You go up and grab the ball off the rim when it comes off. And then you grab it with two hands. And you come down with it. And that’s considered a rebound,” Prince said during his time at Baylor.
