In what was a slugfest between the residents of the Eastern Conference basement, the Wizards emerged on top (quite handily). Here are my 5 takeaways from last night’s basement:

1. This was a Kuz masterpiece. Another near triple double from Kuz with 32 points, 12 rebounds, and 8 assists. Kuz has consistently been getting near triple doubles the last couple of games and I’m all here for it. I’ve been asking for greater production in other areas besides scoring, and Kuz has stepped right up to the occasion and has exceeded even my wildest expectations. I really think this can be a 25/10 season for Kuz, but now Kuz has to work on what has always been an issue for him: consistency. He has always been capable of doing this but the issue is too often he’ll go back to playing like he did against the Hawks. Consistency is the name of the game for Kuz. At this point he has nothing left to prove as far as his skillset. Everyone knows he has all the talent in the world, its up to him to show out every time he steps out on the floor, especially since he is the de facto number 1 option on this team.
2. All our starters got into double figures this game. It was a great showing of our depth (which has been lackluster most of this season). Tyus and Gafford had a pretty average game though Gaff did have 4 blocks which was great to see. Poole was the most surprising for me. He was 5-9 and has 12 points, and the surprising part for me was that he ONLY took 9 shots. He’s playing super contained and not trying to do too much, and it might not always lead to him putting up big numbers, but that’s what’s going to help him achieve his goal of becoming a star long term. Deni was the second best starter with a 16/6/5 game for the Wizraeli. He got a lot of his points in transition and bullying his way to the rim. One big change I’ve noticed all season is his willingness to just run and muscle his way to the rim in transition. That’s been huge and he’s been converting at a high rate there. I’m pretty sure he also got his first career 4 point play (though I could be wrong) this game. It was a nice game for Deni.
3. A nice game from the bench as well where we got 2 double digit scorers from there: Gallo and Shamet. Gallo hit three triples and a couple shots in the paint as well. Shamet hit a couple triples and hit some tough shots near the rim as usual. An underwhelming game for Kispy (2 in a row now) where he didn’t hit a single triple and got 7 points off of cuts and dives to the basket. It will be key for Kispert to figure out the consistency in his production. We know what he’s capable of: we saw that at the end of last year. It’s a matter of trusting himself and hitting those shots.
4. Don’t get this twisted: we won this game because of how bad the Pistons are, not because of how good we are. The Pistons are SOOO bad. It’s not even funny. It’s honestly to the point where I kinda just feel bad for them. 8 top ten picks on their roster and this is the result. Don’t know how that guy Troy Weaver still has his job. The Pistons missed so many open shots and layups and just everything in general. Any other team would have beat the shit out of us with the shots we were giving up. We only got away with it because we were playing another shit team.
5. When we’re blowing teams out, I really want more Bilal, Deni, and Kispert minutes. I get that Deni is a “starter” and Kispy is basically our “sixth man” but we really need those boys to get as many developmental minutes as possible. I want them taking as many shots and getting as many reps as possible, and it’s little frustrating to see them get benched for the third stringers. Not saying the third stringers shouldn’t get reps, but the aforementioned 3 players should be getting as close to 30 minutes as possible. I think we’ll see more of that post trade deadline when Tyus, Gallo, Shamet, and JP (maybe) will be gone and a lot more minutes will open up.

Overall, it was a good win, but not a pretty one. I really did enjoy Kuz going off though in the third. It looked like he would have another bum game back in his hometown, but he quickly shut up all his dissenters with his stellar play in the 3rd. Kuz and our young guys are the only thing that bring me joy now. Watching Kuz kill it and make an ill-advised All Star Campaign and the young guys develop every game is what I look for now. I know people want to trade Kuz, but unless a can’t resist offer comes around, I really would like him to stick around and be a mentor for the young guys. He’s a great mentor who has the experience to do what it takes to get to the top, and he’s a high character guy. You’d be surprised how hard it is to find those sort of people these days. Anyways, I’ll see y’all Wednesday when we play the second seed Magic (that was not a typo as a matter of fact).