(Photo: Ned Dishman/NBAE via Getty Images)
Blazers 108
Wizards 105
November 25, 2017, Capital One Arena, Washington, D.C.
In the first of several games that the Washington Wizards will be without their four-time All-Star point guard, they looked like a team that was going to rally together a victory for their fallen leader. At least, that is what it seemed like for the first 44 minutes. The Wizards went scoreless in the final 2:30, while the Blazers scored 10 unanswered. Washington lost their second straight game when leading by double-digits, this time 108-105 to the Western Conference foe.
Game of Runs Early and Often
The classic cliché is that the NBA is a game of runs. The Wizards-Blazers matchup was that exactly. A sequence of the runs provided without comment (but you can tell who won each half from them).
First Half
Portland 11-4
Washington 8-0
Washington 11-3
Washington 7-0
Portland 8-0
Washington 9-0
Second Half
Portland 14-2
Washington 14-2
Portland 10-2
Portland 18-4 (10-0)
Backup Point Guard Play Was Enough
Obviously, Tim Frazier and Tomas Satoransky are not going to produce Wall-level play, but they did enough to get the job done tonight. Frazier finished with a season-high 11 points on 4 of 9 shooting, three rebounds, two assists, and two steals in 28 minutes, while Satoransky finished with 4 points on 2 of 3 shooting, four assists, and three rebounds in 14:41 and a team-best +16.
“I thought they competed and played hard,” Scott Brooks said about his point guards. “That's one thing both are going to do. They are going to play hard. They're not going to be mistake-free. I mean, everybody goes out there, you're going to make mistakes, but try to limit them as much as they can but I thought they played a solid basketball game. I think they can get better as this goes on until John [Wall] comes back.”
“Next man up,” Frazier put simply. “Nothing [changes when starting rather than coming off the bench].”
“My job will be to try and make the second unit play with pace, I think we did that today, and being aggressive and just having flow in the offense,” Satoransky said about his role as now the backup point guard.
“It’s always next man up,” Beal said. “You never want a guy to go on, but reality is it is what it is. John’s out, he’s going to be out for a little minute. We have to step up, I have to step up and be a lot better and lead the guys, get guys involved more. Tim (Frazier) is doing an excellent job of doing so running the team. Tomas (Satoransky) did a great job coming in as well. We got guys who are capable of doing it. We know John, those are big shoes to fill, but at the same time, we trust everybody to come in and contribute. From those two, they did an excellent job tonight. Tim did a great job guarding Damian (Lillard), Tomas did too. It’s frustrating for sure, but we know we move on from it. We don’t pout about it. We will just be men about it and move on to the next one.”
Otto Porter Jr. Needs The Ball Even More
After giving him a max contract over the offseason, Porter has been everything the Wizards could have hoped for and more. He finished with 24 points on 9 of 15 shooting, 10 rebounds, three steals, and two assists in 36:52. He played the first 18 minutes of the second half, which he does not complain about because he still has fresh legs early in the season.
“He plays hard, he plays the right way, he competes,” Brooks said. “He always gives you good effort. Makes shots. This is obviously an adjustment period for us. Where we got to figure out ways to close the games, I thought we played a really good basketball game for three quarters and some change and then we just relaxed defensively and you get a lot of good players rhythm and it's tough to turn it off.”
“I was just being very aggressive [and] finding my spots,” Porter said. “I was just being more physical defensively. Overall just be more aggressive....Everybody had to step up tonight, with one of our leaders out tonight.”
The problem is that aggression stopped over the final nine minutes of the fourth quarter when he did not have a shot attempt. Granted he sat for almost three minutes to get a quick breather, but your second-best scorer on the floor has to get more shots. Brooks takes part of the blame for that, but such a mistake might have just cost Washington a win tonight.
Bradley Beal Gets The Last Shot(s) Again
There is nothing wrong with Beal taking 24 shots in a game especially with Wall’s 15 per game ready to be spread around. Beal began 7 of 13, but finished 3 of 11 in the last seven minutes of the game. He was also 1 of his last 8 and 0 of his last 5. In the last two minutes, Beal missed a layup, a three, a long two, a jumper from the free throw line extended, and a three at the buzzer. The last two were good looks that Beal certainly is capable of making, but they did not stay down and for the third time in recent games, he was unable to make a game-winning shot in crunch time.
“I thought it was good, so good leaving my hand,” Beal described. “Guess there was just a little guy sitting on top of the rim just knocking the ball out of there.”
Different Game, Same Problems
It is simply unacceptable to blow a 17-point fourth quarter lead to a team playing on the second leg of a road back-to-back. Portland ended the game on a 31-11 run over the final 18 minutes as CJ McCollum caught fire with 13 points on 6 of 9 shooting. The Wizards seemed to understand what the issues are but they simply continue to persist.
“We just couldn't get stops,” Brooks put frankly.
“We got to stay aggressive,” Beal said. “We got too complacent. We thought the game was over, the game was never over. They kept hitting and they were knocking down shots, getting stops when they need to and they closed it out. We didn’t. That’s two in a row for us in being in this type of situation. We have to be a lot better, for sure. … I got to close out games better. We all have to on both ends of the floor and we have to learn from it. We are getting tired of mad faces in the locker room after the game, especially after we were up 15 twice in this game. We have to close it out a lot better, for sure.”
“Towards the end of the game we have to find ways to keep [our defensive effort] up,” Porter said. “We have to find ways to just be solid, especially with four minutes to go. We just really have to find ways to lock in and play for each other.”
“Guard your man, keep him in front of you, don't let him get to the paint, take pride,” Kelly Oubre Jr. said about preventing 48 points getting scored on the team in the paint.
Next Game: After a two-day break, Washington will have another back-to-back at Minnesota and then at Philadelphia.