The Washington Wizards started the season at an atrocious 3-12. Yet after Thursday night’s win against the Los Angeles Clippers, The Wizards sit at a respectable, 14-20, entering the All-Star Break. Even more surprising, since Valentine’s Day, The Wizards have gone 8-3, which included a five-game winning streak. Thus the question must be asked, what changed?

One of the biggest factors that led to The Wizards’ disastrous start was the NBA pre-season—or the lack thereof. In a regular season, NBA teams will play a minimum of eight pre-season games, but this year, they only played three. 

While missing out on five games may not seem like much, those games can be an integral part of gaining team chemistry, something The Wizards badly needed. With five new players on the roster, including former All-Star guard Russell Westbrook, The Wizards chemistry was non-existent at the start of the season. This lack of trust among n teammates led to many of The Wizards’ sloppy losses. 

Even with missing cohesiveness, The Wizards had excellent individual plays from many players, including center Thomas Bryant. Bryant was averaging 15 points and six rebounds a game prior to suffering an ugly ACL tear on Jan. 9 against the Miami Heat. 

This injury left a big hole in The Wizards’ offensive game plan, forcing them to scramble and find a fill-in center. They never truly found a solid fit, shuffling through three different big men: Alex Len, Mo Wagner and Robin Lopez. While each showed some flashes of potential, none could truly find his rhythm and consistently perform well for the team on both offense or defense. 

Defensive woes were not just a struggle for The Wizards centers, the team’s defense as a whole was downright laughable. Wizards star Bradley Beal, after another defensive breakdown led to a loss, voiced his frustration. 

“We can’t guard a parked car,” Bradley Beal said. 

He was right. The Wizards ranked second-worst in points allowed per game and ranked dead last in points allowed in both the first and fourth quarters. That last stat is the reason The Wizards lost so many games at the beginning of the season. They dug themselves into a massive hole in the first quarter, rallied to get back into the game in the second and third quarter, then threw it all away by collapsing defensively in the fourth quarter. 

Even through the defensive struggles and lack of team chemistry, The Wizards were getting better each game they played. Until, in mid-January, The Wizards were devastatingly hit by a coronavirus outbreak. 

At the peak, The Wizards had six players test positive for the virus, with an additional three players stuck in isolation. This crippled the progress they had been making, shutting down their facilities for over a week. Even after their return, games were played with only six players for a short stretch. It seemed The Wizards wouldn’t be able to recover their season. Then came February. 

The Wizards started their best winning streak in almost five years with a strong win over the Boston Celtics. They then had to hit the road and head west to play their hardest road trip of the season. They proceeded to beat the Denver Nuggets, Portland Trail Blazers and even the defending NBA Champions Los Angeles Lakers like it was nothing. 

Given this was the same team who had just lost to the Knicks a week prior. Yes. T Knicks. Something changed in The Wizards’ locker room, and to nobody’s surprise, it came from the two best players. 

The spark The Wizards were in search of came from a team meeting organized by Russell Westbrook and Bradley Beal. They challenged each one on the team to know their role and perform that job at the highest level possible. Westbrook and Beal led by example, with Westbrook almost averaging a triple-double in a season where some wrote him off as “washed,” with 20.7 points, 9.7 rebounds and 9.8 assists per game.Beal, on the other hand, is having the best season of his career, averaging a league leading 32.9 points per game and earning him his third NBA All-Star selection. 

The question looms, however, whether The Wizards can keep up this streak of winning and ultimately make their way to the playoffs. Well, they currently sit only two games out of the last playoff spot. If they continue to play defense at a high clip, then you know what they say, defense wins championships.