How John Wall is slumping while the Wizards rise

After signing a maximum contract extension last summer that will kick in next year, John Wall put together his finest pro season yet in 2013-14, leading the Wizards to 44 wins and their first playoff berth in six years while also being selected to his first All-Star game.

It's no wonder then, upon realizing that the Wizards were in the weaker of the two East playoff brackets (the non-Heat bracket), that observers speculated Wall might be this year's postseason breakout superstar - in the mold of Paul George and Stephen Curry last year - if Washington could make a surprise run to the second or even third round.

Well so far, the Wizards are getting the job done. The team heads back to Washington for Games 3 and 4 of their East semifinal series against the top-seeded Pacers having gotten a split in Indiana, the first time since 1982 Washington has a second round win to its credit. And this coming after they rather easily dispatched of Joakim Noah's and Tom Thibodeau's Bulls in five games during the first round.

The thing is, very little of that postseason success has to do with Wall, as the All-Star point guard has done more regressing than breaking out in these playoffs.

After averaging 19.3 points and 8.8 assists as one of the Eastern Conference's best point guards during the regular season, Wall is averaging 16.1 points and 7.3 assists through his first seven career playoff games. Those slight drops in basic statistics may not tell the story, but his playoff shooting numbers surely do, as after shooting 43 percent from the field and 35 percent from three during the regular season, Wall is shooting a horrendous 32 percent from the field and 16 percent from deep during the postseason.

Those off-target numbers leave his playoff shot chart looking like this:

Whether the three-point shooting slump is making him think twice about firing away from beyond the arc or whether Chicago and Indiana's defense is taking away his three-point opportunities, Wall is also launching a higher percentage of 'bad shots' during the playoffs than he was during the regular season.

Check out the following table (courtesy of Basketball Reference), which shows the percentage of Wall's field goal attempts that come from the various shooting distances.

As you can see, Wall is taking slightly less of his shots near the rim and a lot less from three, while taking a higher percentage from 3-10 feet, 10-16 feet and 16-plus feet within two-point territory. During the regular season, 49.7 percent of his shots were coming either at the rim or behind the arc. In the playoffs, that number has dropped to 42.3.

The same way a player can get unfathomably hot without regression to the mean during a smaller sample size in the playoffs, they can also go ice cold during that time. This is particularly true when a player relies on long two-point attempts as much as Wall does, as more than a third of Wall's field goal attempts come from the two-point territory of 16-feet and beyond.

He converted 36 percent of the time from that range during the regular season, but has seen his long-two success rate plummet to 26 percent during the playoffs. And the Bulls, Pacers and potentially the Heat (or Nets) in the next round are content to let him fire away from the lowest percentage area of the floor.

Between his obvious shooting slump and an assist percentage that went from 40.5 (No. 3 in the league) during the regular season to 31.7 during the playoffs, Wall has seen his solid Player Efficiency Rating of 19.5 fall to a barely above average 15.7 in the playoffs. In addition, his postseason Win Shares per 48 Minutes mark of .108 would be the worst figure he's posted since his sophomore season two years ago.

Any way you look at it, Wall's offensive production has gone AWOL.

Having said all of that, his defense has been solid for a Wizards team that has both the second-best defensive rating and second-lowest opponents' field goal percentage during the postseason. Wall has also taken care of the ball wonderfully, turning it over just 9.9 times per 100 plays compared to 16.3 during the regular season and 17.4 for his career, and he is shooting less overall, attempting 13.9 shots per 36 minutes after taking 16.2 in the regular season (although his passes per touch have dropped slightly from 0.77 to 0.74) while getting to the free throw line a ton more.

Not to mention, Wall's on-court/off-court metrics have been sensational so far. The Wizards are outscoring opponents by 8.9 points per 48 playoff minutes with Wall on the floor as opposed to being outscored by 16.8 points per 48 with their starting point guard on the bench (according to NBA.com), although this has as much to do with Washington's strong starting unit as a whole as it does with Wall.

Nevertheless, Wall is finding ways to contribute to some degree despite his downtrodden offense right now, which might be a sign of development and maturity in and of itself. Plus, between Nene, Bradley Beal, Trevor Ariza and Marcin Gortat, the Wizards might have enough hot talent to get to the East Final anyway, let alone to give the Pacers a series.

If they can get there this month for the first time in 35 years, Wizards fans probably won't care about which players were doing what during that journey. But for those who want to see the best at their best during the postseason, for those who want to see young stars breaking out this time of year and those who love talk of future 'legacies,' Wall's production during this once-every-30-years Washington run has been quite the disappointment.