In the interest of fairness, we should get the caveats out of the way first. The Wizards played the entirety of Monday night's 116-89 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder without Andray Blatche, Rashard Lewis, and Cartier Martin.

"Part of it was who we were playing," said Wizards coach Flip Saunders when it was all over. "Part of it was who we had playing."

When the Wizards take the floor Tuesday night against Chicago (8:00 p.m., CSN), they will do so without the above-mentioned three as well as Josh Howard, who only played 11 minutes before his knee "acted up," as Saunders put it. 

All of that is well and good. But it doesn't excuse what took place in front of an announced crowd of 17,921 at the Verizon Center Monday night, the vast majority of whom were streaming out into the unusually warm night long before the end of the third quarter. By that point, the Wizards had fallen behind by 28 points, and, remarkably, it would get worse.  

If the defining moment of Saturday night's game was Blake Griffin's emphatic rejection of John Wall midway through the second quarter, than the defining moment of Monday night came on the very first possession. Public address announcer Ralph Wesley had barely finished exhorting the crowd to stand at their seats until the Wizards' first basket when JaVale McGee swept down the lane and contorted his body just enough to try a ridiculous finger roll attempt that George Gervin in his prime would have had trouble with. With the seven-foot-tall McGee as the protagonist, the ending was more predictable: the shot came nowhere near the rim and fell into the grateful arms of Kendrick Perkins. Russell Westbrook converted a layup at the other end, and the Thunder went on to score the next six points before Nick Young's jumper gave the Wizards their first points.

The Wizards did do well to keep the margin respectable in the first quarter, but never managed to actually take the lead in the game; not even by a point, not even for a few seconds. The Thunder, who were playing the second game of a back-to-back stretch, never needed to get out of second gear as they rested all of their starters during the fourth-quarter. You couldn't blame Scott Brooks for depriving fans the sight of Durant in crunch-time, as the Thunder were up 95-70 after 36 minutes, and there was no further need for pointless butchering.

Saunders, who's been through a lot personally over the last two weeks, and who's been through a lot professionally over the last year-and-a-half, slumped into the media room looking as tired and withdrawn as he'd been at any point this season. His team has lost by greater margins this season (three times, to be exact: the opener against Orlando, Nov. 17 against Boston, and Feb 28 against Chicago), but never before had they looked so lifeless, so bereft of energy and ideas.

"You have to bite your lip, and I do actually have a callous on my lip, but you try and let them play through some things" said Saunders in response to a question about (who else?) McGee, whose poor performance crested with two stupefyingly stupid turnovers on back-to-back possessions in the fourth quarter. The first came when McGee fired an outlet pass between two of his teammates and out-of-bounds, the second when he attempted a behind-the-back pass. The remnants of the Verizon Center crowd were, for the most part, too incredulous to boo.

"If this weren't a rebuilding situation, he'd have a tough time [getting off the bench]," Saunders said of his center. "You can't play that way. That's losing basketball." In that moment, Saunders, who has so often preached style over substance and playing within limitations with regard to McGee, looked like a teacher by proxy, hoping that if he couldn't get the message through, someone in the media could. Unfortunately, as the media approached the locker room, they were met by McGee himself, making an early exit ahead of Monday's red-eye flight to Chicago. No time for interviews or teaching moments, not Monday night, anyway.

"The best part is," Saunders said near the end of his press conference with his special brand of deadpan sarcasm, "we have to go to Chicago and play a team that's playing really well." His team, on the other hand, has lost 11 of 12 since gaining their first road win against the Cleveland Cavaliers on February 13. Perhaps the prospect of catching Chicago on an off-night is the best thing going for the Wizards right now. Lord knows little else is.