Tom Knott: No defense for this switch

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By Tom Knott

Do not be fooled by the Wizards 124, Warriors 100 in Tony Cheng's neighborhood on Tuesday night.

We now know the remedy for the ailing Wizards, and it was not a coaching change.

It was a team that plays worse defense than the Wizards. The Warriors came into the game with the second-worst defense in the NBA, just two places ahead of the defensively challenged Wizards.

Otherwise, the challenge before interim coach Ed Tapscott remains daunting.

His is change we cannot believe in at this point, not unless Tapscott has a magic wand in his bag of coaching tricks.

Tapscott wants to improve the defense and the physicality of the Wizards, which is fair enough.

Eddie Jordan was forever preaching defense during his tenure. He preached it to the point that Gilbert Arenas, in one famous instance, decided to neglect his offense and focus all his energies and attention on defense. After the loss, a clearly annoyed Arenas, in one of his out-of-body verbal excursions, discussed how it now was all about playing defense and blah, blah, blah.

The Jordan-Arenas dynamic was just one of the curious aspects of the team. Arenas knew that he became who he was in part because of the freedom he was allowed in Jordan's system.

But Arenas, who lives on his own planet, did not always embrace the advice of Jordan or the assistant coaches. That included being committed to playing defense.

Now it is up to Tapscott to reach Arenas - if Arenas ever returns to duty.