Away from home, Wizards (0-20) just so much roadkill so far

The room service is slow. The hotels are all drafty. Every bus to and from the arena smells, and every city is colder and more gray than the previous one. Even when they're working their way through the NBA's Pacific Division.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with the service, the rooms, the buses or the climate. It's just that life on the road, challenging enough for every team in the NBA, is especially grueling these days for the Washington Wizards, who have lost in other teams' buildings 20 times so far in 2010-11. They haven't won a road game since last April.

"I'm getting tired of going home feeling sorry for ourselves," forward Andray Blatche said after Washington's 100-87 loss at Milwaukee last week.

Two days before that game, the Wizards beat the Utah Jazz at the Verizon Center, their first victory of the season over a team with a winning record. Three nights after facing the Bucks, Washington stunned the Boston Celtics 85-83, again at home, before a sellout crowd. Down 35-20 after one quarter, they rallied behind rookie John Wall, whose 3-pointer in the final minute broke an 81-81 tie.

"We got down 15," Wall said, "and usually when that happens on the road, we just give up."

Or worse. In Milwaukee, facing a team missing three starters (Brandon Jennings, Carlos Delfino and John Salmons), the Wizards led by 12 points in the second quarter and by two at halftime. But they missed 15 of their 20 shots in the third and the Bucks missed only five. Washington got no closer than seven points the rest of the way.

"Same as every road game," guard Kirk Hinrich said. "We don't move the ball on offense or run our sets. Defensively we can't get stops. It's pretty much the same things that always happen to us."

Embarrassing, Wall called it. "You don't want to go 0-41."

Then again, you don't necessarily want to bet against that.

Only five previous teams in NBA history endured a 0-20 start on the road. None of them went 0-41: The Sacramento Kings hold the modern distinction as the NBA's most egregious travelers with a 1-40 record in 1990-91. (Baltimore went 0-20 in 1953-54, one year after Philadelphia sputtered to a 1-28 road mark in the league's formative years.)

The 1992-93 Dallas Mavericks lost their first 29 road games, finally winning on March 19 of that season in Philadelphia. In 1974-75, the New Orleans Jazz started the season 0-28 on the road (thanks in part to playing 11 consecutive road games, and 17 of 22, from late November to early January). Denver went 0-22 as visitors to start in 1997-98.

Road woes are as old as hook shots in the NBA. This season, all 30 teams have worse records away than at home. Minnesota began the week 2-21. Cleveland, New Jersey, Sacramento and the Los Angeles Clippers have only three road victories each. Improbably, the Cavaliers won three of their first four road games but have dropped all 20 since. Equally improbably, Denver is 20-5 at home vs. 5-13 on the road.

So Washington isn't alone. Even if it feels that way, especially with five of its next six on other people's courts. After facing the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden on Monday night, followed by a home game against the Nuggets, the Wizards play four road games in five nights at Oklahoma City, Memphis, Dallas and New Orleans.

At this point, Washington's road woes are on the minds -- and white boards -- of opponents, too. "Nobody wants to be in position to end that streak," Bucks coach Scott Skiles had said before facing the Wizards. "They're going to win a road game. They're going to win more than one road game. We certainly don't want it to be against us."

Best bets? If not against the Knicks, who have lost their last six games and are just 10-9 at home, then Washington's next best chance might come in Cleveland on Feb. 13. After all, the Thunder, Grizzlies, Mavericks and Hornets are a combined 62-26 at home.

Washington's closest call came on Nov. 21, when it lost in overtime at Detroit, 115-110. Since then 10 of its 14 road losses have been by double digits, including an average of 13 points in the past four. But even those have been close enough at some point -- or felt that way -- to keep the Wizards from getting their spirits completely crushed, coach Flip Saunders said. After four of their past six road losses, they have gone home and immediately won.

"You wouldn't know we are [0-20 now] on the road from how our guys approach each game on the road," Saunders said. "It's not like our guys come in [heads down, expecting the worst]."

Saunders, with two years left on his contract after this one and so much work to do, is abiding as well. "Chuck Daly told me when I first went to Detroit, 'Hey, if you do one thing, win your home games,' " the Wizards coach said, setting up his punchline. "He should have told me you've got to win some on the road, too."

Fact is, even the Ice Road Truckers roll better on the road than this crew. Why? All the usual suspects: The Wizards are young. They're lacking in veteran leadership. They have been hurt. They're unfamiliar with each other. Saunders has used 16 different starting lineups this season, his team has been rebuilt around a rookie (Wall) and Washington has been convulsed several times by trades either desired or needed. As the coach points out, 12 months ago only one of his guys was an NBA starter -- Rashard Lewis -- and he was doing it for a different franchise.

Then you ladle on all the other challenges that face even established teams on the road. For instance, salty veteran teams like to swagger into someone else's gym and shut up the crowd. Young teams such as the Wizards lean on their home fans. Specific plays that might ignite the arena at home -- taking a charge, flushing a dunk -- get no rise from folks on the road. Boost? Not provided. Momentum? Unswung.

An article in Sports Illustrated earlier this month explored the why's and wherefore's of home-court and home-field advantage. It cut through a lot of the speculation about air travel and strange environments, while concluding that officiating bias can creep in via the human nature of referees or umpires who react unintentionally to crowd reactions. That's something that all NBA teams might face -- most coaches believe that certain referees handle that better than others -- but young, unproven squads such as Washington get affected by it more.

"There are a lot of guys now who like the home crowd," is how Milwaukee's Skiles put it. "They like everything going their way. They like having the crowd on their side. That's why it's so difficult to win on the road.

"You'd like the guys on your team to understand what an accomplishment and how much fun it is to win on the road. Normally, you're in a not-as-friendly environment -- you've got the crowd against you -- and to be able to go in and get a tough win, it's fun."

Cleveland coach Byron Scott said the old Showtime Lakers teams on which he played "wanted to make sure we left the building with 19,000 people ticked off at us." That group, of course, was at one end of the NBA evolutionary scale. These Wizards are somewhere way back.

Said Saunders: "The maturation process of a young team is, the first thing you've got to do is beat the teams at home you're supposed to. Then you starting beating teams at home you're not supposed to beat. Then you go on the road and start winning against teams that are the same caliber as you. Then to be an elite team that's going to win 50 and 60 games, you've got to beat good teams on the road.

"We're above that first [step in the] maturation process. We believe we can beat anybody at home ..."

The next step? Anyone, anytime, any which way at all, on the road.

Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA for 25 years. You can e-mail him here and follow him on twitter.

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