(Photo: Washington Wizards)
Cavaliers 106
Wizards 99
December 17, 2017 | Capital One Arena | Washington, D.C.
For the fourth straight time at home, the Washington Wizards could not beat the Cleveland Cavaliers. They were handicapped without Otto Porter Jr. (bruised right hip/thigh), but that was no excuse as the visitors were without Derrick Rose, Iman Shumpert, Isaiah Thomas, and Dwayne Wade on top of playing on the second leg of a back-to-back.
An exhilarating first half was followed by poor offensive execution by the home team in the fourth quarter as they totaled their third worst point total in the final frame this season with 16. In the continued narrative of two steps forward, but one step back, the Wizards fell and dropped to 16-14 on the season.
LeBron James Continued His Reign
At first look, the Wizards did a good job defending James. He finished with 20 points on 8 of 23 shooting (34.7 percent) and just 2 of 7 from deep. Compared to last month’s 57 points on 23 of 34 shooting (67.6 percent), Scott Brooks, who joked that hopefully his team could keep The King to 56 this time pregame, and the players were pleased.
“Just be physical, accept the challenge,” power forward Mike Scott said about his mindset in trying to defend James. “Make it tough for him. When he’s in the post, mostly against me, he’s trying to make passes, trying to get everyone else the ball, but I see he’s a lot more aggressive with John and Brad in the post.”
“I think we did good,” Beal said. “I think the only thing that we should have done as much as kind of doubled. Sometimes we were in no man's land and stuck in between whether or not we were going to double or stay at home. We gave up those quick hitters and those hurt. For the most part, we guarded him well one-on-one. We forced him into a lot of touch downs, a lot of contested ones. We know he's more than capable of making them but it wasn't his night. [He wasn't making shots] tonight, so we live with it.”
Unfortunately for the Wizards, James made them pay in other ways with 15 assists and 12 rebounds that gave him his third consecutive triple-double. Brooks said that his team gave the proper level of effort on the defensive end tonight, but had a dozen mental mistakes that against a LeBron led team leads to easy three-pointers and backdoor layups. John Wall said that James’ team and the San Antonio Spurs are the two clubs that make opponents pay for their mistakes the most.
“That’s the thing: when they have a lot of players that can shoot threes and if you try to take the ball out of his hands, he finds wide-open players or players that are not even really wide-open, but he finds them. He has the ability to pinpoint all of his cross-court passes. He’s a big, he’s athletic, he’s strong and he knows how to play. His IQ is the highest I’ve ever been around in my coaching career, just the way he sees the floor. He constantly surveys the floor every step of the way.”
Bradley Beal Plays Lots, But Is Also Struggling
Without Porter, Beal was forced to take on the burden of playing more minutes with Wall still on a pitch count following his two knee injections. Beal played 43:28 out of a possible 48 regulation minutes and played the first 20 minutes of the game before taking his first substitution. Brooks admitted after the game he probably went a few minutes too far with the soon to be All-Star. Beal gave it his all with 27 points on 10 of 27 shooting to go along with 5 rebounds and 5 assists, but fatigue was certainly a factor. Beal missed 6 of his last 7 shots as well as 6 of his last 7 three-pointers after starting 9 of 20 and 3 of 6, respectively.
“I was a little tired,” Beal said. “I was a little tired but it's mental toughness more than anything. I knew what kind of game this was going to be, and I knew that with Otto [Porter Jr.] being out and Kelly [Oubre Jr.] in foul trouble and with John's [Wall] minute restriction, I would definitely have to be playing a little bit more or so. I was cool with it. I love being on the floor as much as I can, and I feel good. I was a little winded, but timeouts help, and as much as I can I was able to get breathers here and there. I just mentally pushed through everything.”
Beal is all but guaranteed an All-Star spot with his 23.7 points per game average, which is surprising given that he is shooting 35.4 percent (68 of 192) from beyond the arc this season, a career-low. He did not think too much of it when asked about his struggles and pointed to the fact that he just has to keep shooting it and let things average out. Beal said to start worrying when he stops shooting because of a lack of confidence.
Second Half Shooting Cost Washington
The difference between the Wizards shooting in the first and second half was day and night. In the first, Washington had 60 points on 46.8 percent (22 of 47) shooting and 56.2 percent from deep (9 of 16). In the second half, the home team could only muster up 39 points on 38.6 percent shooting (17 of 44) including 17.6 percent (3 of 17) from beyond the arc. Unofficially, the Wizards missed 11 shots at the rim, which is indicative of 7 of 15 shooting on second chance attempts.
“Well, one, we just couldn’t make shots,” Brooks said about the fourth quarter offense. “I’ll take a look at the film and my gut tells me that there were pretty good looks. I thought we had a lot of good looks. I thought we had a chance when we were up four – we missed a couple of layups, we missed a couple of threes – maybe could have given us some cushion. Then they hit some timely shots [and] some timely threes off of our mistakes, they had a timely post-up off of our mistake. We’re not a 16-point scoring team in a quarter now that John [Wall] is back, but we were tonight. Give them credit, they made the big plays and we didn’t in the fourth quarter.”
“Shots just didn't go in,” Beal reiterated about the fourth quarter offense. “I feel like there were a lot of good looks, a lot of open threes, a lot of easy ones at the rim. A few turnovers that hurt us. All in all, we feel like we had good shots, they just didn't drop.”
Mike Scott Continues To Shine
Coming into the game, Scott was had 80 points on 34 of 43 (79.1 percent) shooting from the field over his last 6 games. He did not quite keep up that efficient scoring, but still had 19 points on 8 of 14 (57.1 percent) shooting. He played a season-high 33 minutes, partly because he started the third quarter with Markieff Morris receiving x-rays on his neck (they came back clean), and hit timely shots right when the Wizards were on the verge of going to the point of no return.
John Wall Makes History
With 15 points, John Wall passed Phil Chenier and Gus Johnson on the Wizards all-time regular season scoring list to move into fifth all time. He is 51 points away from taking over fourth place all-time from Kevin Loughery. He will then need some time before passing Wes Unseld (10,624), Jeff Malone (11,083, or Elvin Hayes (15,551) as he currently sits at 9,787. Despite the great accomplishment, Wall was not in the mood to talk about it too much because of frustration from the loss.
“We lost, so it doesn’t really mean too much, but it’s a great honor. Phil’s a legend, and that’s all I really got to say to be honest.”
Next Game: In the finale of this home game stretch, Washington will welcome one of John Wall’s best friends in DeMarcus Cousins when the New Orleans Pelicans come to town on Tuesday. Here is something to cheer you up in the meantime following another emotionally draining loss.