Since we're approaching that day Bill O'Reilly likes to call "Christmas," I figured it would be okay to indulge some of my un-Plank-ish interests, like professional basketball. In particular, I want to propose a theory about why our hometown Washington Wizards seem to play so well against Western Conference powers like the Lakers, Nuggets, and Suns, whose 15-game winning streak they stomped out last night.* My thinking is this: We're a team stacked with offensive firepower--Gilbert "Agent Zero" Arenas dropped 54 on the Suns last night, which was only good enough for his second-best offensive performance of the week. But our defense is so lousy it can make any NBA team look like an offensive juggernaut. The problem with playing top Eastern-Conference teams is that, not only do otherwise mediocre offenses end up looking very good against us (Chicago, Orlando, Cleveland), their more effective defense can, if not quite shut us down, then certainly hold us in check. On the other hand, some of the top Western conference teams--like Phoenix, Denver, L.A.--don't play a ton of defense.** True, they have high-powered offenses of their own. But that's really neither here nor there, since we make every team look like it has a high-powered offense. So, as a practical matter, what playing a run-and-gun Western Conference team amounts to for us is playing a team with a mediocre defense, which, on balance, is a good deal. If you're going to give up more than 105 points to everyone you play, and allow them to shoot better than 46 percent from the field, then you might as well play a team practiced in giving up those kinds of numbers, too. I guess the alternative explanation is that the Wizards, with their explosive offense and abysmal defense, are capable of both beating and losing to any team in the league, depending on whether the offense shows up. That's certainly proved to be the case so far this year. (Victories against Dallas and Cleveland, in addition to the wins I've already mentioned. Losses to Memphis and the Knicks.) But that theory's so much less interesting that I'm going to leave it on the back burner for the moment. --Noam Scheiber *This post will only be of interest to those ten Plank readers who follow the Wizards, five of whom are on staff at TNR. **Obviously there are different ways to measure defensive performance. The Suns give up a ton of points per game, but they play an up-tempo style that gives opponents a lot more possessions. A better metric might be opponent's field goal percentage, but even here the Suns are pretty mediocre. A still-better metric might be points allowed per possession, which John Hollinger more or less calculates here. The Suns finish thirteenth in this ranking, which isn't bad, but probably not what you'd expect from one of the top three teams in the league.