I had a conversation with Jalen Rose back in October about the Washington Wizards prospects during the 2009-2010 NBA season.  I specifically asked Rose whether he was concerned about the Wizards defense, since they had never been particularly stellar in that area over the past few years.

His response was, “They’ve never been a team that’s going to hold you to 80 or 90 points…but they’ll be able to get buckets and be competitive with other teams.”

When I probed a bit deeper and asked him about the effect new head coach Flip Saunders would have on the team, Rose’s response was even more telling.

“I think he’s a real innovative coach…offensively.”

Of course, this line of thought was spawned by the Washington Wizards 110-98 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday night.  During that last 8:48 of the fourth quarter, the Wizards allowed the Thunder to score 25 points, while only mustering 13 of their own.

After the game, Coach Saunders clearly lost his cool and went on a rant about what else? Defense.

“This team needs a mindset change,” an obviously annoyed Saunders said after the game. “This team, the last five years, has been known as one of the worst defensive teams. … We couldn’t stop anybody out there.  We could take five guys in this room[the media room], they would have had a chance.  They had 46 uncontested shots. I mean, I’ve never seen that, ever, in a game. ”

Coach Saunders went on to say that lineup changes could be in order.

“Whether it’s lineup change, hey, it’s all up in the air right now. We’ll come back to practice in two days, and spots will be open for whoever it is. If guys don’t like it, that’s fine, but that’s the way it’s gonna’ be. Because I’m not gonna’ sit there, stand there, and look at that any more. Through 30 games, you evaluate through 30 games where you’re at, and right now, the way it’s going, it ain’t getting done.”

When you cover a team like I do the Wizards, and you hear a coach rip his team the way Saunders did, you absolutely cannot wait to get to the locker room to hear what the players have to say in response.

But much to my surprise, when I went to the locker room, none of the players seemed to disagree with the coach’s observations about their defensive effort.

“When you give up a dunk in the fourth quarter to a high level player like Kevin Durant, everybody on the team is mad because he’s supposed to get fouled and he’s supposed to get fouled hard,” Brendan Haywood admitted. “Nothing dirty, but he’s supposed to get fouled.  That’s when we’ll get better as a team, when you take pride in getting stops.”

These sentiments were echoed by Gilbert Arenas.

“Right now we stink and we’re showing it. Over the last few years we’ve had a losing mentality and we’re just finding ways to lose ballgames.”

The lack of effort and execution on the defensive side of the ball is nothing new when it comes to the Washington Wizards.  After one particularly disappointing loss to the 76ers last season, then-coach Ed Tapscott said this about the following about the Wizards’ defensive effort.

“We worked hard the last two days on pressure defense, and we just didn’t execute when we needed to execute and I think our lesson has to be execution and hard work.  We were outworked and out-executed.  Bottom line.  And if that means I’ve got to script a preparation period before the game for the last 20 some odd games, then I’ll check with the team captains and we’ll have a script. ”

When current Sixers coach Eddie Jordan was with the Wizards, the largest knock against him was the Wizards’ lack of consistent defense.  At the start of the 2007-2008 season, Jordan brought in former Orlando Magic and Philadelphia 76ers assistant coach, Randy Ayers to shore up the defensive flaws, and there was immediate improvement.  The Wizards allowed 99 points a game that season which was good for 12th in the NBA– a significant improvement from the previous year when they were 28th.

But that was two head coaches and a playoff appearance ago.

Now we are 30 games into the 2009-2010, and there’s a new coach, plenty of new players, a healthy Gilbert Arenas, uncertain ownership status, and trade rumors involving Caron Butler, JaVale McGee, Antawn Jamison and even Arenas.  And even with all that hanging over the collective heads of the team, the issue of defense still reigns supreme and is still a significant issue, and the players, coaches, and fans have to be wondering if things can get any worse.

To quote Flip Saunders’ rant last night: “We’ve[the Wizards] got to wake up. As I told them, don’t ever think it can’t get any worse because it can. There’s no question, it can.”

Let’s see if the team is able to head the wakeup called delivered by their head coach.