Swengali: To Beat Celtics, Wiz Need Defense

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NOW THAT WE know the Celtics are officially the best team in the NBA — a fact that took some of us longer than others to realize — the Washington Wizards have their target.

In one year, Boston went from being the Eastern Conference's worst team to the league's best. Please tell me Ernie Grunfeld has some plan to jump-start the Wizards.

What we saw in the NBA Finals is that defense isn't just a cliché or something that’s nice to play once in a while. Because the Celtics dedicated themselves to defense, they were able to forever end comparisons between Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan. (A big thank you is in order for that.)

Maybe this is the year Washington will finally get the message. The Wizards, sans Gilbert Arenas, improved defensively to compensate for the loss of Arenas' scoring. Yet they were hardly good enough to win a championship, and when Agent Zero returned, the team returned to its 2006 form

To move beyond the Cavaliers just to get to the Celtics, the Wizards might have to trade Arenas or let Antawn Jamison leave as a free agent, though Grunfeld insists neither will happen.

Next week's draft is the first step. I'm advocating an ABRH approach (Anyone But Roy Hibbert, who will be badly outmatched in the pros).

Kansas' Darrell Authur is a popular pick in mock drafts. He's a power forward, a position of need. That would be a good a start, but that's it.

Changes are needed; the Wizards can't keep hoping to avoid LeBron James in the playoffs.

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