Tom Knott: Essentially finished after this kind of start

The Wizards are wedged between the rock of another giveaway loss and the hard place of a season that is approaching unsalvageable.

The Wizards are on a 26-win pace, about half the number of victories that were expected going into the season. To reach the 50-win mark, they would have to play at a .717 clip the rest of the way and close with a 43-17 surge.

That is a highly unlikely prospect, judging from the first 22 games of the season.

Give the Bad News Wizards this: They are creative in defeat, none more inventive than the loss at home to the Pacers on Saturday.

The Wizards eventually could find creative ways to win, but that won’t undo the damage of their dreary start.

Their playoff hopes remain viable, if only because four sub-.500 teams could qualify for the postseason from the Eastern Conference.

A four-game winning streak would restore their playoff vigor, if it matters in the spring considering what would await an eighth or seventh seed: a first-round date with the Celtics, Magic or Cavaliers.

That would be a mentally deflating position, given the team’s fanciful preseason talk of pushing into the conference’s top tier.

The team that has done that is from Atlanta, a previously irrelevant NBA city since the days of Dominique Wilkins.

The Hawks have an abundance of energy that the Wizards would be wise to channel. That might help them with their slow starts or sluggish second quarters or unsteady finishes.

If it is not one thing with the Wizards, it is another.

The another is often Gilbert Arenas, whom the Wizards are waiting on anew.

Arenas may be on the court in body, but no one is touting his chances of appearing in a fourth All-Star Game.

He has had a couple of games, a couple of flashes, a couple of moments. Mostly, though, he is left with a disbelieving look, whether it is directed at a referee who has made a disagreeable call or at a teammate who went one way while the pass went the other.

His surgically repaired left knee apparently is sturdy, receptive to back-to-back engagements. Yet no player eliminates two seasons’ worth of inactivity in 22 games. Arenas just might end up needing most of the season to reclaim that which he once was, if he is destined to return to his previous self.

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