The biggest reason the Washington Wizards are in a 1-0 hole to the Toronto Raptors is because they let the home team hit a playoff franchise best 16 three-pointers on 53.3 percent shooting. Whether it was not matching up in transition or the inability to fight through screens, the Wizards did not look like the fifth best three-point defense in the NBA that they were in the regular season when they only allowed 34.9 percent shooting from deep. Here is what went wrong on all of Toronto’s 16 makes from beyond the arc, which are fixable with the correct level of dilligence and focus.
After Bradley Beal and Otto Porter Jr. cross once DeMar DeRozan and OG Anunoby switch who is in the corner, Beal is late to close out on Anunoby.
Following a John Wall missed layup that he felt was a foul call, Toronto pushed the tempo and Washington could not matchup in transition, which again resulted in a late closeout from Beal on Anunoby.
Jakob Poeltl set a hard screen on Tomas Satoransky, which prevented him from contest CJ Miles’ three-point attempt as well as he needed to against such a lethal three-point shooter.
Again in transition, Washington does not matchup as Satoransky is late to find Miles who immediately demands the ball and pulls up from deep.
Poeltl gets another screen assist against Satoransky that allows Delon Wright a clear look from the top of the key.
In transition, Markieff Morris requests Marcin Gortat to pick up Serge Ibaka, which he does, but Gortat does not stick with Ibaka because of the driving DeRozan, which allows Ibaka a clean look on the kickout.
A pick-and-roll between DeRozan and Jonas Valanciunas had all five Washington players ball watching as Morris dropped down to provide help in the paint, which allowed Ibaka to free up from the same spot in the left slot.
Valanciunas sets a simple pin-down screen on Wall, which gives DeRozan a clean look from three.
Morris was a tad too worried about what DeRozan was doing with the ball and lingered a step too far away from Ibaka in the corner.
In transition and in rhythm, Lowry stops on a dime to send Beal flying by and have another clean look from the top of the key.
On a pretty blatant offensive foul by Ibaka by pushing Porter in the back, the Wizards’ small forward went flying behind DeRozan and unable to contest the shot at all.
Kelly Oubre Jr. gets sucked into the paint to try and help against a Delon Wright, but gives Pascal Siakam a wide-open look from the corner. It may have been the game plan to give Siakam space because he was only a 22 percent three-point shooter in the regular season.
Once again on the break and with momentum following Mike Scott’s flagrant foul, Oubre gets caught ball watching the driving Lowry and leaves CJ Miles wide open from his permanent office.
Wall’s defense was questioned much of this season, but a decent amount of it could probably be attributed to his ailing knee. Here, he has no excuses. Delon Wright went from all the way in the right corner to the top of the key without Wall even taking a peak as he was too busy ball watching the pick-and-roll action.
Oubre committed an incredibly lazy pass turnover to Beal in the backcourt that the Raptors were able to pick off and with the Wizards’ defense in scramble mode, Miles made them pay again.
In yet another example of Toronto pushing the pace, they had Washington in all kinds of bad defensive matchups in a possession where Gortat had to guard DeRozan and then the big also being the closest man to Lowry who had leaked to the corner.
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