{"id":520178,"date":"2026-01-06T12:55:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T12:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/520178\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T12:55:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T12:55:13","slug":"hes-really-the-anchor-to-our-defense-wizards-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/520178\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cHe\u2019s really the anchor to our defense,\u201d Wizards coach \u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last season on defense, typical of a young big who was acclimating to the faster speed and better athleticism of the NBA, Sarr sometimes found himself a step late to challenge opponents\u2019 forays to the rim. This season, he looks more adept at anticipating opponents\u2019 attacks. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6941266\/2026\/01\/05\/rudy-gobert-alex-sarr\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:\u201cHe\u2019s really the anchor to our defense,\u201d Wizards coach Brian Keefe said. \u201cHe establishes protecting the paint, which is a big deal in the NBA. Obviously, he\u2019s been doing this since he\u2019s been here, but he\u2019s getting better at this.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">\u201cHe\u2019s really the anchor to our defense,\u201d Wizards coach Brian Keefe said. \u201cHe establishes protecting the paint, which is a big deal in the NBA. Obviously, he\u2019s been doing this since he\u2019s been here, but he\u2019s getting better at this.<\/a> We\u2019ve still got some work to do on that, even though he\u2019s still blocking four or five a game recently. He just sets the tone for who we want to be in protecting the paint and establishes a presence down there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6941266\/2026\/01\/05\/rudy-gobert-alex-sarr\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:New York Times;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last season on defense, typical of a young big who was acclimating to the faster speed and better&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3780],"tags":[7,3362,652,6,682,468,3892,683],"class_list":["post-520178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-washington-wizards","tag-basketball","tag-brian-keefe","tag-defense","tag-nba","tag-washington","tag-washington-wizards","tag-washingtonwizards","tag-wizards"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115848263981891069","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}