Our fearless leader Ernie Grunfeld seems to believe so.

Grunfeld believes that even without Arenas and starting center Brendan Haywood, the Wizards have enough talent to be a .500 team.

"We're better than we have performed," Grunfeld said when asked about the decision to fire Jordan, the third-winningest coach in franchise history.

I think that we'd all agree that there's some truth in that.  Save for two blowouts at the hands of the Magic and a sloppy loss at Miami, the Wizards have been competitive in every other game they've played this season.  In fact, in of those losses, they've either held the lead or been within one possession of tying the game.  Let's take a look back at those losses:

• Lost to New Jersey by 10, despite holding a lead in the 4th quarter.  At the time it seemed like a bad loss since most people thought the Nets would be one of the worst teams in the league.  In hindsight, it doesn't look nearly as bad given that the Nets are currently 9-7, but it was still a game the Wizards could've had.  Last lead: 8:05 left in the 4th quarter.
  
• Lost to Milwaukee by 8 in OT.  The Wizards had control for most of the game, but a late 10-1 run forced an extra period and the Bucks rode the momentum to a win in extra time.  Out of all the wins that the Wizards have given away, this one probably stings the most.  Last lead: 2:16 left in the 4th quarter.
• Lost to New York by 6.  New York had the lead for most of the game, but a Caron Butler layup gave the Wizards the lead with less than a five minutes to go.  Then the Knicks scored 12 of the last 15 points.  Last lead: 4:41 left in the 4th quarter.
• Lost to Atlanta by 4.  A DeShawn Stevenson jumper gave the Wizards a 4 point lead with 1:05 to go, but two treys from Joe Johnson gave the Hawks the lead for good as the Hawks would go on to score 8 points in the last 65 seconds.  Last lead: 0:27 left in the 4th quarter.
• Lost to Houston by 12.  If you can believe it, the Wizards actually held a 9 point lead with less than 9 minutes to go and still managed to lose by double-digits.  Apparently Tracy McGrady can still hit threes when he's left open.  Last lead: 3:56 left in the 4th quarter.
• Lost to New York by 5.  Of course, this was the game that the Wizards lost despite the Knicks only suiting up 7 players.  I'd say the consensus among most Wizard fans was that it was a game that Wizards should've won given the circumstances.  Not everyone agrees, however:

   

  Sean: You obviously didn't watch the Wizards, this season nor the past three playoff years. Eddie Jordan's Princeton offense was nonexistent. He was possibly the worst defensive coach in the league. His genius strategy of giving up the most 3s in history was classic. How do you lose to the Knicks who dress seven guys?

  Justin: There's no bigger cliche in the inbox of sportswriters than the fan who writes in to say, "You obviously don't watch Team X." Please. I watch all the teams. I talk with scouts about them. I talk with coaches, general managers and players about them. I am happy to recognize that legit disagreements come up among observers. But don't try the I-know-more-than-you-because-you-don't-watch-my-team angle. It's bunk.

  I would say you need a Princeton offense primer. They run some variation of the Princeton offense 99 percent of the time. Ask any scout. I have. As for losing to the Knicks, that's not hard to do when you are missing your starting point guard, your backup point guard and your starting center. The Wizards had to start Dee Brown and JaVale McGee. That's why they lost.

  I'll agree that sportswriters don't get enough credit for the hours they spend watching film and gathering insights from people in the know.  I'll also agree that the Wizards run the Princeton about 99 percent of the time.  But I just don't see where he's coming from with the last part.  Sure, the Wizards were without their two best point guards and their top center, but the Knicks were without their top shooting guard, top center, and they didn't have the services of one of their top two point guards because he refused to play.  Plus, the Wizards had two All-Stars and a full bench to compensate for their roster issues, the Knicks didn't. 

  Should that game have cost Eddie Jordan his job?  Maybe not, but I think it's a game that he should've won.

  Anyways, despite all that, the Wizards had a chance to win, late in the game but as you would proably expect given the theme that's been established, a late run by the Knicks did them in.  Last lead: 7:18 left in the 4th quarter.

For those of you keeping score at home, that's six losses where the Wizards had a lead in the fourth quarter only to end up losing.  Plus the Wizards have had three games this season (at Detroit, vs Miami, and vs Atlanta) where the Wizards had either tied the game or come within one possession of tying the game in the fourth quarter.  That's nine games where the Wizards have had a chance to win in the 4th quarter but come up unsuccessful.

Now you can blame those close losses on bad late game execution, bad coaching, or just plain bad luck, but I think it's going to be hard for the Wizards to keep losing 9 out of every 10 close games they play this season, especially once Gilbert Arenas comes back.  Will better late game performances and the return of a superstar be enough to get the Wizards back into the playoff hunt?  I doubt it, but I also doubted the Wizards would be able to make the playoffs last year without Agent Zero, I doubted that JaVale McGee would be able to contribute in his rookie season, and I doubted that I'd ever see the words "Stealth Booger" written with any sense seriousness attached to them. 

It's goinig to take an amazing run over the last 68 games to get into the playoff chase, and our current record doesn't lend itself to a lot of optimism about the rest of the season.  It may seem bleak, but let's not close the door on the team just yet.

Box Score
Game Flow
Post Recap
Times Recap
Truth is glazed and the Wizards are basted
Peachtree Hoops

Highest Plus/Minus: Antawn Jamison (+14 in 37:35)
Lowest Plus/Minus: Juan Dixon (-16 in 7:00)
Best Five Man Unit: Antonio Daniels, Nick Young, Antawn Jamison, Darius Songaila, Andray Blatche (+4 for the start of the 4^th quarter)
Worst Five Man Unit: Dee Brown, DeShawn Stevenson, Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison, JaVale McGee (-9 to start the game)

Four factors:

Last night's game more or less followed the script that we've seen far too often this season: Wizards find themselves in a early hole at the end of the first quarter, start to make a comeback in the second, struggle at the start of the third, make another comeback to get close and then they can't finish at the end.  I think this quote from the Wizards Insider recap really says it all:

Well, as a Wiz vet said to me a few minutes ago in the locker room: "Same old (stuff)."

Obviously, there's been a lot of tough losses this season and you can see that it's starting to wear on some of the players.  The key right now is to focus on execution and keep things upbeat, because the last thing we need right now is for the players to start thinking beforehand that they're going to mess things up late in the game.  The last thing a 2-12 team needs is self-fulfilling prophecy working against them.

Other thoughts from last night's game:

• At this point, we all know what Darius can and can't do as a player.  We know he's not going to get a bunch of blocks or dunks, but he can make some shots and he work well within the frame of the offense.  Last night he did a good job of playing to his strenghts.  Other than Andray Blatche, Darius has benefited the most from the coaching change, in this blogger's opinion.

• I admire the thought of Andray to go and use his long arms to try and poke the ball away from the other team when they grab a defensive rebound, but he really needs to stop doing it.  He's gotten way more fouls doing that than he has steals.
• There are three ways to get open three point shots in the NBA:
  • Work the ball around, force the defense to over-commit and leave a man open beyond the arc.
    
  • Play against the Wizards.
  • Be DeShawn Stevenson.  Teams will give you all the space you want to shoot a three when you're only making 26.9% of them.
    
• Antonio Daniels hit two three pointers last night!  The last time AD made two triples in the same game was November 24, 2007.  The rest of Daniels' game was also solid, I don't think it will be long until we see him back in the starting lineup.
• The rebounding was very good last night.  I know the Hawks were without Josh Smith and Zaza Pachulia, but the Wizards didn't get any rebounds from JaVale McGee, Dominic McGuire, or Etan Thomas and they still managed to win the rebounding battle.  I'll take it.
• To be honest, I didn't know a whole lot lot about Solomon Jones before tonight's game, but I was impressed with his performance tonight.  Getting 5 blocks in 15 minutes has a way of getting people to notice you.
• I believe the Wizards have benefitted more from technicals from players in street clothes than any other team this season.  Joey Dorsey got T'd up in that infamous Summer League game in July and Josh Smith got a tech last night for arguing from the bench.  At least one thing has been going our way this season.

With 68 games left on the schedule, it's still going to be a long time until the Wizards ______ the season.

On defense, we can't ______ close-outs.

On offense, we can't ______ when we get high percentage shot attempts in the paint.

And as the record clearly shows, we just can't ______ games.

EDIT: The lack of a game thread was my fault.  I forgot I had to do some broadcasts for Brandeis games. -PM.

First of all, sorry about not having a game thread tonight, I guess there was some kind of miscommunication on that, which I'm pretty sure was my fault.  I was at the G!O!T!N! tonight (hence, why I'm pretty sure it was my fault) so I didn't get a chance to see the start of the Ed Tapscott era tonight, but I'm pretty sure that there's some kind of mass conspiracy going on, because there's no way that these numbers right.

Did Andray really have 25 points, 12 rebounds, 5 assists, and 5 blocks tonight?

Did Caron Butler really score 35 points?

Did we actually hold a team to 30% from behind the arc?

Did Andray play for almost 30 minutes and only have 1 turnover?

Did we outscore the Warriors in every quarter of the game?

Did Dee Brown, who had scored all of nine points this season, score in double digits tonight?!?

If even one of these things is true, I'll be estatic.  But I'm pretty sure that you all are trying to pull a fast one on me.