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Wizards Pass To Win Over Hawks Without John Wall

Neil Dalal

(Photo: Scott Cunningham/Getty Images)

Wizards 129

Hawks 104

January 27, 2018 | Phillips Arena | Atlanta, GA

On the heels of their first three-game losing streak of the season, the Washington Wizards thrashed the Atlanta Hawks in convincing fashion exactly a month after embarrassingly losing to the division rival. The Wizards punched the Hawks in the mouth first and never let them back in the game as the road team led coast to coast. Washington is now 16-11 against teams that are currently sub-.500.

“I thought we played with a great spirit,” Scott Brooks said. “Right where it needs to be. It’s defending and passing the ball, it’s a simple game plan. They did it with great effort, great passion. Now we just got to keep doing it. We can’t keep talking about it, ‘this is how we want to play’ when we have a good game and talk about it when we don’t have a good game ‘this is not how we want to play.’ So, now we just have to play consistent. Win or lose, we just have to play with that same spirit that we played with tonight.”

 

John Wall Sidelined, Again

During the team’s morning shootaround, Brooks revealed that the team would be without their five-time All-Star point guard on Saturday because of the reoccurrence of a left knee injury that cost him two weeks starting in the end of November. Wall has now missed 12 of 49 games during this season, which is as many games that he missed during the previous four seasons combined. Wall is expected to meet with the doctor that did his double knee surgery in May 2016 on Monday. Despite not having one of the fastest point guards in the game, the Wizards won the fast break category 15-2 against the Hawks. Washington is not 6-6 in games without Wall.

"John is here," Tim Frazier began. "He's in our ears, Tomas and I, telling us what we should do, what we shouldn't do. We're trying to learn from him on the fly as well."

“It’s about playing for each other,” Marcin Gortat said about playing without Wall. “We know we have talent and even if you don’t have talent, you can still overachieve a little bit if you just play the right way. Play the right way, you are going to pass the ball to the guy that is open and the guy is going to miss the shot and we can live with that. Just if the guy is trying to challenge against two, three guys and take tough shots over a contested hand, then obviously we have an issue. We were playing together, we had fun.”

 

Sharing is Caring

Washington had 40 assists on 49 made field goals and some of those nine buckets were the result of put back layups. This is the first time in Wizards name history that they have recorded 40 assists in a single-game and most in team history since Bullets had 40 against the Hornets in 1992. Brooks is a big preacher of passing the ball to go from a good to great shot and the Wizards made him proud plenty of times against the Hawks. Washington finished with a franchise best 18 three-pointers for the third time in team history including earlier this season.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” Brooks began about the 40 assists, “but I like the way we were playing, regardless of if we made shots or not. We were playing with an extra pass in our mind.”

“I think we did a great job tonight,” Satoransky said. “We did a great game and we needed that. I think we didn’t play well on this trip, we didn’t play well last two games especially and we just knew we got to get back to moving the ball, having aggressive defense.”

“It was an unbelievable win,” Marcin Gortat said. “There was great ball movement. It was a great team victory. We all played for each other. We shared the ball. Everybody was able to take a few more shots today, and everybody was enjoying it. It was great.”

 

Markieff Morris Picks It Up

In 30 minutes, Morris had a season-high 23 points on an efficient 9-of-12 shooting from the field to build off of a 20-point performance against the Thunder. Morris was lighting it up from beyond the arc with a career-high four three-pointers on just five attempts. The power forward was a game-best +22 and also contributed with five rebounds, three assists, and a steal.

 

Strong Point Guard Play

Last season, the Wizards backup point guards were Trey Burke and Brandon Jennings. Last than a year later and Washington has two options that are better than Burke and Jennings combined with Tomas Satoransky and Tim Frazier. Satoransky made his first start of the season and finished with 11 points and 7 assists in 21 minutes of play. He was 3-of-3 from beyond the arc, which is a career best. Frazier had four points but made his biggest impact with 14 assists off the bench and a career-high three blocks. "I'm trying to figure out where they came from," Frazier said. He is the first player in the NBA since 1973 to have those assist and block numbers as a non-starter.

“I think we both knew we had to be aggressive, we have to have a good rhythm,” Satoransky said about himself and Tim Frazier. “Especially when he came to the floor, we had a great pace. Easy buckets, easy shots, very happy for him. He had such a great game because he’s an amazing teammate always supporting everyone and he’s been working hard on off days. Very happy for him and I think we did a decent job of keeping our pace up.”

 

Bench Doing Their Part

The last time Mike Scott was in Atlanta, he welcomed the birth of his daughter after the Wizards loss to the Hawks last month. Against his former team and probably in front of some friends and family, Scott came through with 19 points on 8 of 13 shooting including 3 of 6 from beyond the arc. Kelly Oubre Jr. did his thing with 15 points on 6 of 12 shooting in 27 minutes including another poster dunk on John Collins who he must really hate for his short shorts. Even Jodie Meeks pitched in with 8 points on 3 of 6 shooting and 2 of 4 from deep in 10 minutes.

 

Next Game: Wizards will look for some revenge against the Thunder when Washington returns home for a Tuesday night matchup. Wall’s status for that game is very much up in the air.

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