Counting on your backcourt core to be the cornerstone of your franchise has always scared me a bit. Gortat & Nene are solid starters but not gamechangers. Teams that live & die by their guard play always get me nervous. That being said, they look like one of the top 3-4 teams in the East.
Also, as much as I love the guy, I do wonder how much Pierce has left in the tank.
I have a tough time seeing the Wizards getting past (a healthy) Chicago or Cleveland in the East.
I admittedly don't watch them (duh, Celtics fan here) but...
It would seem that both Nene and Gortat are very good in the pick and roll, and they have Pierce who can run it now or spread the floor, and Wall and Beal should be good and running it with them, too.
What were they doing on offense, or was the defense subpar?
Faf touched on it in his post; its the efficiency of Wall/Beal. I would expect it to be relatively up & down with a backcourt. When your core is your backcourt, it concerns me in terms of your long-term prognosis for success. If you're living & dying with your guard play, I have doubts about how far you can really go.
They go extremely lucky with their first round matchup with the Bulls last season. The Bulls team, offensively, was an absolute mess than got exposed in that series. Washington also played extremely good basketball. They pushed a very hot & cold Pacers team to a sixth game in the next round but came up short. As currently constructed, that might be their ceiling or maybe an appearance in the conference finals if things break right.
On paper they've improved but they are still going to be asking a lot from that backcourt and I do have question marks about how well that translates in the playoffs.