The season is officially 75% over now that the Wizards have played 62 games, winning 30.  This point last season, Washington was 35-27 after losing 7 of its previous 9 games.  This season, Washington has the easiest remaining schedule, according to opponents’ W-L record, but is still 1.5 games behind Chicago for 8th place.  Staying healthy (see Beal, Bradley), limiting turnovers, and playing consistent defense, will be three keys to success over the final 1/4 of the season.  Below you’ll find the remaining schedule and some stats on the games.

Remaining Schedule

 

 

 

Schedule Analysis

A look at the number of games left in each category.

Venue: Home 8 ; Road 12

Conference: Eastern 11  ; Western 9

Divisional games: 4

Back to Back Sets: 4 

2 or more days rest before game:  2

Sunday (traditionally the Wiz worst & least played day) and Thursday (least played day) games: 4

Games against teams in positions 5-9 of East (Wiz 4.5 gb of 5th): 7

Games against Bulls and Pistons (8th and 9th in East, Wiz 1.5 gb of 8th): 3

Games against teams at or below .500: 10

Games against teams at or below .410: 9

Games against the bottom 5 teams by win %: 6

Team Splits

How the team has fared for some of the above metrics.

Venue: Home 16-17 ; Road 14-15

Conference: Eastern 21-20 ; Western 9-12

Southeast Division: 7-5

Second day of a back to back: 5-11

2 or more days rest before game: 10-4

Sunday and Thursday games: 2-4

Games against teams in positions 5-9 of East: 5-6

Games against Bulls and Pistons: 3-1

Bonus Coverage: John Wall

Usually by the 50 game mark it’s extremely hard to increase season averages significantly.  Luckily for Wall, who as mentioned above by Marc Stein can become the 4th player ever to average 20 points, 10 assists, and 5 rebounds, he only needs to increase his assist and rebounding numbers by 0.2.  Assuming Wall plays all 82 games he’ll need to get to 820 assists and 410 rebounds to meet these averages.  He currently has 610 assists and 299 rebounds, meaning he needs 210 assists and 111 rebounds.  This comes out to averages of 10.5 assists and 5.6 rebounds.  Keep in mind he also needs to maintain his 20 ppg average, which with Beal in and out of the lineup, and the team chasing a playoff spot, should be the easiest of the three.  Because of the Wizards’ need for Wall to score more, his assists have dropped some since the All-Star break, posting 9.2 per game over his last 10.  He is averaging 10.2 over the last 5 though.

If Wall falls short on the rebounds requirement, but gets to 20 points and 10 assists, he will become the 10th player in league history to accomplish this feat.  He’ll likely have company as the 10th though because Russell Westbrook is on pace to accomplish the feat, currently averaging 24.1 PPG and 10.3 APG.  Here are the 9 players to do it so far: