With the Wizards in the midst of another quick road-trip, we had the chance to catch up with head coach Nate Bjorkgren from Fort Wayne to discuss among other things, the teams recent acquisition of Patrick Sanders, the recent run of overtime games and the brutality of the D-League schedule.
Dakota is back in action tonight against the Mad Ants, we'll have a full recap tomorrow.
On recent second half struggles, inability to close out games:
I think it’s a little bit of everything. I think some of it is fatigue, but I tell you what, we’ve just had the ball not bounce our way a few times. If you remember in that most recent win (double-overtime vs. Tulsa) on Friday, I think you even wrote it, we had three straight turnovers that were really uncharacteristic or out team. Mo (Baker) steps on the endline, Shy (Ely) tries to post feed (Curtis) Withers – that results in a turnover. Then Edwin (Ubiles) traveled bringing the ball up and the officials gave it back to Tulsa. That’s three straight possessions, bang, bang, bang, that results in nine straight points. If those three things don’t happen I thought we were very good in the fourth against Tulsa, we were in a position to win that one by 10 points. If you look at Sunday night against Fort Wayne it was the same thing. They had the ball under their own basket, we get a deflection and it goes right into the hands of Darnell Lazarre. Mo got run down from behind and the ball was knocked away and they got it back again – we’ve just had some bad bounces. Our guys are playing hard, but if they’re not closing out like they should, or not moving and cutting like they should, the other team is going to jump all over it. We do a good job of putting ourselves in position to win games and we’ve won some close ones, we’ve lost some close ones.
On the starters playing so long against Fort Wayne:
I’m trying to mix it up. In talking about our lapses in games, sometimes it’s been fatigue; sometimes it’s been certain lineups. I rode the starters longer in the second half. For example, JJ (Justin Johnson) didn’t have good numbers when he went in the first time, then he comes in late in the game and had four or six straight points. I’m just looking for that lineup and I did, I went for it in that game. I wanted to get that game just like I want to get every game.
On the D-League's packed schedule:
It’s tough when games come on you quick. We watch a lot of film, do extensive work in pregame stuff before heading to the arena. Guys are banged up but we’re able to walk through some stuff, get on the court as a team. It comes back to taking care of yourself and your own team first, we need to keep getting better at the little things. There were a few big perimeters from Sunday where they catch it on the perimeter and instead of us having active hands that are up, they’re down and they hit those shots. We have to challenge shots better.
On Patrick Sanders acquisition:
When Taylor Griffin went down in the Showcase we needed an emergency body and there was Patrick Sanders sitting in the pool. He’s a guy that I was familiar with, I knew what I’d get with him. He averaged 13 or 14 points a game in the D-League a few years ago. He’s a veteran, I knew he would come in and wouldn’t disrupt any chemistry.
Dakota is back in action tonight against the Mad Ants, we'll have a full recap tomorrow.
On recent second half struggles, inability to close out games:
I think it’s a little bit of everything. I think some of it is fatigue, but I tell you what, we’ve just had the ball not bounce our way a few times. If you remember in that most recent win (double-overtime vs. Tulsa) on Friday, I think you even wrote it, we had three straight turnovers that were really uncharacteristic or out team. Mo (Baker) steps on the endline, Shy (Ely) tries to post feed (Curtis) Withers – that results in a turnover. Then Edwin (Ubiles) traveled bringing the ball up and the officials gave it back to Tulsa. That’s three straight possessions, bang, bang, bang, that results in nine straight points. If those three things don’t happen I thought we were very good in the fourth against Tulsa, we were in a position to win that one by 10 points. If you look at Sunday night against Fort Wayne it was the same thing. They had the ball under their own basket, we get a deflection and it goes right into the hands of Darnell Lazarre. Mo got run down from behind and the ball was knocked away and they got it back again – we’ve just had some bad bounces. Our guys are playing hard, but if they’re not closing out like they should, or not moving and cutting like they should, the other team is going to jump all over it. We do a good job of putting ourselves in position to win games and we’ve won some close ones, we’ve lost some close ones.
On the starters playing so long against Fort Wayne:
I’m trying to mix it up. In talking about our lapses in games, sometimes it’s been fatigue; sometimes it’s been certain lineups. I rode the starters longer in the second half. For example, JJ (Justin Johnson) didn’t have good numbers when he went in the first time, then he comes in late in the game and had four or six straight points. I’m just looking for that lineup and I did, I went for it in that game. I wanted to get that game just like I want to get every game.
On the D-League's packed schedule:
It’s tough when games come on you quick. We watch a lot of film, do extensive work in pregame stuff before heading to the arena. Guys are banged up but we’re able to walk through some stuff, get on the court as a team. It comes back to taking care of yourself and your own team first, we need to keep getting better at the little things. There were a few big perimeters from Sunday where they catch it on the perimeter and instead of us having active hands that are up, they’re down and they hit those shots. We have to challenge shots better.
On Patrick Sanders acquisition:
When Taylor Griffin went down in the Showcase we needed an emergency body and there was Patrick Sanders sitting in the pool. He’s a guy that I was familiar with, I knew what I’d get with him. He averaged 13 or 14 points a game in the D-League a few years ago. He’s a veteran, I knew he would come in and wouldn’t disrupt any chemistry.
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