Improved chemistry helping Wizards reach their potential

A little chemistry can go a long way.

After having the best year in a decade last season, the Washington Wizards are on track to have an even better one this season.

Behind MVP candidate John Wall, the Wizards are one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference and the players say it all comes down to being in sync.

I think the balance between the role players and the guys who have to bring it every day its good, Marcin Gortat said. We have the right system and we are trying to stick to our principles and what we are supposed to do. We have some days where we have less focus than we are supposed to have. At the end of the day, I think we have a really talented team that works really well together.

Washington finished 44-38 last season and made it to the conference semifinals. The Wizards had a good thing going but lost a key piece of the puzzle -forward Trevor Ariza, who ended up in Houston, where the Wizards defeated the Rockets 104-103 on Monday night. They are now 22-8 on the season.

Ariza, a veteran leader, was helping build the teams maturity, coach Randy Wittman said. When free agency rolled around and Ariza headed to play for the Rockets, Washington acted quickly and picked up another veteran forward, Paul Pierce.

You always have a contingency plan for that and thats what we did, Wittman said. Nothing ever really surprises you anymore in this league. It was a situation where we would have loved to have Trevor stay.

We wanted to make sure we didnt lose anything in that area with a guy like Trevor. We are trying to move on. We have Paul who has come in here and really moved into that spot.

In addition to averaging 12.9 points and 4.5 rebounds, Pierce knows how to win. He has an NBA championship with Boston in 2008, where he was the Finals MVP.

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Improved chemistry helping Wizards reach their potential