Wizards faltering ahead of difficult stretch in schedule

The sunny optimism that marked the start of the Washington Wizards’ season in October and November has been tempered recently by the overcast skies of December — and the forecast ahead looks even gloomier.

Once at 10-3 — one of the best starts in franchise history — and atop the Eastern Conference, the Wizards have since lost nine of their last 14. A defensive-minded, overachieving team a month ago is now faltering ahead of the most difficult part of its schedule thus far.

Now at 15-12 and in seventh place in the deep Eastern Conference, the Wizards have a challenging road trip starting Monday on the West Coast.

There are two potential outcomes for the road trip. The first is the Wizards continue to play poorly and return home the day after Christmas .500 or worse. The second is the Wizards get back on track, hold their own against some of the best teams in the association and come home multiple games above .500.

Coach Wes Unseld Jr. said the upcoming stretch of games poses an opportunity for his team.

“I think any time you’re on the road, it’s your group, that’s it. It’s that ‘us against the world’ mentality,” the first-year coach said after the team’s loss on Saturday. “I’m hoping that we pull together and find a way to attack these road games with the right mindset.”

The road trip starts Monday in Denver against the 13-13 Nuggets and then moves to Sacramento for a game against the 11-16 Kings (records as of Sunday afternoon). One night later, the Wizards play Phoenix, which boasts the league’s best record at 21-4, on the second half of a back-to-back. Unseld’s squad ends the West Coast portion of the trip in Utah (19-7), on Saturday — one week after the same team pounded the Wizards 123-98.

Then it’s a home date against Brooklyn — the top team in the Eastern Conference with an 18-8 record — and the Knicks, who are currently 12-14. Five of the six games of the road trip are against teams that made the playoffs last season. It doesn’t even get easier when they return home, as the Wizards take on Philadelphia (15-12), Miami (16-11) and Cleveland (16-12) before the new year.

“They’re winnable. We have some tough opponents, there’s no doubt. We’ve played against some high-level opponents and played well,” Unseld said. “There’s no excuse for us to not approach it that way. It’s a good opportunity for us.”

The schedule getting more difficult was inevitable. Washington’s strength of schedule so far has been the fifth easiest in the NBA, with opponents posting a combined .483 winning percentage as of Sunday afternoon. For the remainder of the season, according to Tankathon, the Wizards have the 14th most difficult schedule in the league.

What makes the upcoming schedule even more challenging is the fact that Washington didn’t take advantage of the easier stretch of games that preceded. In their previous nine games, the Wizards went 4-5 against teams that currently have a combined record of 92-144. They lost to New Orleans, San Antonio and Indiana — three of the bottom 10 teams in the league.

Unseld said the team’s identity “isn’t where it should be” — or where it was when the team opened the season on a hot start.

“We have to get back to playing at that pace, with that level of physicality, the attention to detail, the focus, the purpose. All those things you can’t quantify them, but when you watch the film and how we played, it’s different [now],” Unseld said. “I think our offense has been good at times during this stretch…but we’ve let go of some of the defensive presence we had early in the year. That was our anchor, and we have to find a way to get back to that.”

Bradley Beal, who is off to the worst start to a season since he became an All-Star, agreed with Unseld, but added that it’s not all doom and gloom in the District.

“We’re 15-12 now. We still have a solid record,” said Beal, whose field-goal percentage (44.2%) and points per game (22.5) are his worst since 2016. “We’re not kicking ourselves…but we’ve got to eliminate the bad habits for sure. This league is never get too high, never get too low. That should be our approach.”