(Photo: Ned Dishman/NBAE via Getty Images)
Wizards 116
Pelicans 106
December 19, 2017 | Capital One Arena| Washington, D.C.
This time of the year, the talk of the town is all about Cousins. Kirk Cousins. For one night only, that spilled over to DeMarcus “Boogie” Cousins as he and the New Orleans Pelicans came to town for their lone trip to D.C. John Wall does not worry too much about acquiring one of his best friends although he admits it would be nice.
During the game, Washington got an up close and personal look of the impending free agent’s skillset. As a spoiler, Cousins put up an impressive 26 points and 13 rebounds, but was outdone by fellow Wildcat Anthony Davis who dropped 37 points to go along with 9 rebounds. The down side for Cousins was his seemingly lack of interest and effort, especially on the defensive end, to the ire of his coach Alvin Gentry. In my opinion, New Orleans is going to want the literal vault from Capital One Arena and such an investment is not going to be worth the presumed profit.
Midway through the first quarter, the home team began their first big run. Washington rattled off a 24-7 run to take a 19-point lead thanks in part to John Wall’s play. In his fourth game back from two knee injects that cost him nine-games, he looked like the Point Gawd that many fans have grown to love. In the first quarter alone, Wall had 14 points and 6 assists and accounted for 28 of the Wizards 36 first quarter points.
Once building up a 25-point lead midway through the second quarter, the home team went from 100 to 0 real quick in anti-Drake fashion. Washington was held scoreless for nearly the final five minutes of the first half and during that time, New Orleans went on an 18-0 run to cut their deficit to five. Early in the third quarter, the Pelicans came all the way back to tie the game at 61, which in total was a 28-3 run after Gentry picked up a technical foul to fire his team up. The Wizards did their part to fuel the run by missing 8 straight field goals and committing 5 turnovers during the stretch.
Similarly, to how Gentry used a technical foul to wake his team up, Scott Brooks immediately countered with a timeout when the lead was lost and Washington responded with a 30-7 run and never looked back on their way to a victory. Two of the biggest factors to such a turnaround back in D.C.'s favor, were Bradley Beal and Mike Scott. Beal finished with 26 points and made 5 of his last 8 shots from deep after a slow start, while Scott gave another supreme performance off of the bench, in what could end up being a Comeback Award winning performance, with 24 points on 11 of 15 shooting.
For Beal, who has previously stated ‘a miss is like lady’ to explain how he will never be discouraged to the point of hesitant shooting, he stuck by his word. Tonight, he explained that he will continue to shoot until his arm falls off, which was the near case early as he missed his first three shots from deep and at that point was shooting a career-worst 34.8 percent from beyond the arc.
“He didn't have a good first quarter,” Brooks explained after the game. “He didn't have a lot of attempts. … I've told Brad, and I think he's really getting it, you just have to keep playing the right way, everything works itself out. Great players always end up with opportunities. The way he's playing this year, he could have a 14-point quarter, he can have an 18-point quarter, just like that.”
For Scott, who has literally fought tooth and nail to return to the point he is today over the past ten months, his performance was so good that it nearly brought tears to his eyes. A quite soul in Washington’s locker room, two big ovations from the crowd understanding the fiery stretch he is on meant the world to a young man that was out of the sport he loved and legitimately facing jail time just a few months ago.
“I don't really show a lot of emotion on the court, but that felt great,” Scott admitted nearly on the verge of tears in the locker room and likely on his way to the bench in the moment as well. “Very grateful for that. It may seem nothing to other players, but stuff like that feels great.”
In the last eight games, Scott has 123 points off the bench on 53 of 72 shooting from the field (73.6 percent). He has three games of 22+ points in the last 11 days even though he has not had a single game with more than 20 points since April 4 of 2014! Despite a stretch with three missed shots, which seems like a rarity during this streak, and getting embarrassingly stripped by guard Jrue Holiday, Scott had the confidence to shut up Boogie Cousins who was trash talking. “DeMarcus Cousins said my iso was weak the play right before. ... I just wanted that shot [one legged jumper] real bad. I just laughed at him [after].” Cousins had to eat crow after the game, by complimenting Scott’s performance.
“You can tell he is playing with a lot of confidence right now,” Cousins evaluated. “He has been a spark for them lately, and he came out and did that exact thing tonight. We did not stop the bleeding when we had a chance to. He had his way with us tonight.”
I asked if Scott could ever envision what he is currently experiencing back in February once getting traded and cut in the matter of hours and before I could even finish the question, he politely replied “no, no, no.” For someone that has worked so hard to come back from his skeletons on and off the court, it is incredibly heart warming to see Scott fight his way back to where he stands today.
Next Game: Washington will have a couple days off before a return trip to Brooklyn as the first leg of their back-to-back before returning home to play Randy Wittman’s (well he is only an assistant coach, but you get what I am saying) Orlando Magic.