Wall rips Wizards' effort after wasting his 52-point game
John Wall is doing everything he can to carry the Washington Wizards, but he can't win games by himself.
The All-Star poured in a career-high 52 points Tuesday night, but it was all for naught as his club fell 124-116 to the Orlando Magic.
That's the most points scored this season by the Magic, whose 29th-ranked offense was averaging just 93.2 points entering the matchup in D.C.
Sure, Washington's defense was a problem. But the bigger issue, according to Wall - the only Wizard player to speak with the media postgame - was the overall lack of effort put forth by his teammates.
"Not even defensive effort, just playing hard," he said, as quoted by Chase Hughes of CSN.
"Our job is to wake up and just play hard. Before you made it to the NBA or got a college scholarship, you played hard every day to get to where you wanted to. To still be talking about playing hard, that's something that you should be able to do after just waking up. Everybody has a job and they have to go work hard.
"Our job is to come here and play hard and compete. That's the easiest thing that you should do without any contracts or any money, just come in and play basketball."
Related: Beal sums up Wizards' early struggles: 'No toughness, no swag'
Despite featuring a talented backcourt tandem in Wall and Bradley Beal with a decent supporting cast, the Wizards have disappointed so far in 2016-17. They're among the worst in the league at scoring, rebounding, and sharing the ball, and sit at 7-13.
There are several issues - including chemistry concerns - and Wall doesn't know how to solve them.
"If I had the answer we wouldn't be in this situation, to be honest," he admitted.