The Washington Wizards were able to defeat the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday night after striking out twice in New York City in December. The lottery bound Nets are a scrappy bunch that play hard, but they should be no match for the Wizards who are considered an Eastern Conference contender despite their up and down play. Washington jumped out to a commanding 23-point lead and led at intermission 59-39, but that did not keep Brooklyn from coming back to force overtime.
To begin the third quarter, the Nets went on a 14-4 run before going on a 14-2 run minutes later to cut the Wizards, at one time commanding, lead to a mere three points. After allowing just 39 points in the first half, Washington surrendered 35 in the third quarter. The home team then gave up 33 points in the fourth quarter. In the first half, Brooklyn was 17 of 41 (41.5 percent) from the field and 3 of 16 (18.8 percent) from deep, while in the second half, they were 24 of 50 (48 percent) from the field and 9 of 21 (42.9 percent) from deep. Washington's nine second half turnovers leading to 15 Brooklyn points did not help matters.
"We relaxed," head coach Scott Brooks said. "We were up 23 and had a chance to go up 25 [or] 26 at half. You give them hope and come out in the third quarter slow, and with their speed, they're not going to stop playing. That's how they play. They play every possession hard. They close out games, it doesn't matter what the score is, they play hard and they play throughout the game, and we didn't do that. We didn't do that in that third quarter. We had a chance to be up 20-plus points in that third quarter if we would have played like we did in the first half. But we did it, we got the win. It's time to move on, enjoy the day off Sunday, and come back Mondayafternoon."
Based on advanced statistics, Washington has a +5.2 net rating (109.6-104.5) in the first half, which is 7th in the NBA, but just a -0.1 net rating (104.1-104.2) in the second half, which is 13th in the NBA.
"It felt like we played three games: one in the first half, one in the second half and then an overtime game," Brooks said. "We had some bad possessions in the first half, and then we started off in that third quarter slow. And we got to fix that problem. Not all the time, but occasionally that pops up in the third quarter. We didn't start the quarter well and then the end of the game, we gave up too many threes. This team shoots threes, they shot 43 tonight. When you have a lead, you cannot give up a three, and I think they made four of them down that last stretch of the game."
"The whole second half was just nasty for us, period," John Wall said. We gave we them life and let them back into the game. We made it tougher than we were supposed to. Lucky, we got the win. That’s all that matters. We have to do better, we have to do a lot better."
Much has been made about Wall and Bradley Beal's struggles late in games and the unfortunate trend seems to be continuing. The House of Guards were a combined 6 of 24 (25 percent) from the field in the second half. Even though the Nets are not a playoff team, they are always hustling and playing hard, something the Wizards can learn from, which made things difficult for the home team's back court.
"They are a team that doesn’t ever quit," Wall said. "They are one of those teams that’s a young team and has got a lot of guys trying to find their way in this league and they are developing themselves. They just play hard no matter what, they down 20, they up 20. They are always going to play hard. You get those teams and you get into a point where we got into a lapse in the third and fourth quarter. We weren’t moving the ball and taking bad shots. They got into a rhythm. Allen Crabbe made a couple of threes, Caris [LeVert] made some threes. They got downhill and made it to the free-throw line."
"They’re scrappy," Beal said. "They’re scrappy. They don’t give up. We had them down twenty, which is crazy to think and believe that we gave up that type of lead and we almost tricked it off. We did a good job of staying poised and executing down the stretch, but this is a team that regardless of how young they are or regardless of who’s on the floor, they’re going to play and compete. They’re coach does a great job of making sure he gets the best out of them."
At the end of the day, as Kelly Oubre alluded to after the game, a win is a win, but the Wizards have to find a way to start playing consistent strong basketball the entire 48 minutes of the game. Whether it is them being disinterested against bad teams, which has led to 10 losses against sub-.500 teams, or not putting their foot down on their opponent's throat, the Wizards need to address it now before it costs them in the playoffs.