(Photo: Ned Dishman/Getty Images)
Wizards 122
Raptors 119
February 1, 2018 | Capital One Arena | Washington, D.C.
The Washington Wizards know exactly what outsiders are saying about this team now that John Wall is sidelined six-to-eight weeks following knee surgery and they do not want to hear any of it. Inside the locker room, they know that they still have enough talent to compete with anyone. For the third straight game, they showed them with an impressive victory over the Toronto Raptors who Bradley Beal thinks is playing the best basketball in the Eastern Conference right now. Despite trailing by as many as 12 points and the Raptors nearly clawing their way back late, the Wizards secured another gritty win to put the NBA on notice. Though the crowd was sparse at 15,599, the environment late in the game was a playoff life atmosphere.
Aggressive Bradley Beal Arrives Late
In the first half, the All-Star shooting guard who will also take place in the three-point contest scored just two points and was 0-of-6 from the field. In the second half, he rebounded with 25 points on 9-of-14 shooting to lead his team back from a double-digit deficit. In the first three minutes of the third quarter, Beal scored 11 points to fuel a 13-5 to tie the game at 68. Despite a late scare turnover that could have forced overtime were it not for a missed free throw from Kyle Lowry, Beal knocked down two free throws for his team with three seconds to play to secure the victory. For the 38th time this season, Beal had himself a 20-point game.
“Again, again, he got loose on some of the blitzes,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said about Beal. “After he got the ball out of the blitz, he got it back. Then that's when he attacked a couple of times and a couple switches. He attacked our bigs. So again, he's a great player. We knew we wanted to make him work. But again, it's the other little things. The offensive rebounding, every time they got one they kicked it out and it hurt us so attention to detail on those. And again, being displaced. Not even at the end of the game but start at the beginning of the game. I thought we were playing a little bit too loose and not moving the ball and not really, we got good shots but we didn't get great shots.”
Ball Movement Stays Crisp
In the last three games, without the second leading assister in the NBA, the Wizards have 97 assists on 127 field goals. That is a whopping 76.4 percent. Washington had 30 dimes on their 44 buckets on Thursday. Otto Porter and Beal each had six, Tim Frazier had five, and Tomas Satoransky had four to lead the way with others chipping in. Much of the Wizards shooting 51.8 percent from the field, 44-of-85, can be attributed by the ball movement. For instance, Ian Mahinmi had three dunks in the game and two of them were the result of beautiful passes from Mike Scott. “I got vision,” Scott attributed the success to with a big smile on his face. The Wizards are also 12-3 when tallying 27-or-more assists.
“We are just focusing,” Brooks said about the uptick in assists. “With John [Wall] out of the game, we have to find other ways to score. John gets so many easy shots for our guys and we do not have that. We do not have his speed in transition, we do not have his breakability, playmaking on pick-and-roll plays and we have to make adjustments. I give our staff and our guys credit. We made some adjustments. We know we are going to be without him for a stretch of games and we have met and we have talked and we are trying to figure out ways and how we can win and still be effective because we have a prideful group, guys that care and we have enough and my job is to find ways to keep moving the scoreboard and keep getting the defensive stops that we need. John is one of the fastest, quickest, toughest guard I have ever coached and we had to make adjustments without him.”
Bench Leads Balanced Attack
Having eight players in double-figures is good enough. What was even better was the Wizards bench outscoring Toronto’s 44-23 even though Scott Brooks had raved about the Raptors depth before the game. After a shaky performance against the Thunder, the second unit responded with a combined +20 in 87 minutes of play. Scott led the way with 14 points on 6-of-9 shooting, while Mahinmi and Jodie Meeks chipped in with 10 each.
Meeks scored all his 10 points in the first four minutes of the fourth quarter including two three-pointers within 20 seconds of one another to begin a 12-4 run. It is no secret that the veteran shooting guard has struggled this season as he came in shooting just 30.6 percent from deep this season, but you can bet the ovation he received when subbing out with minutes to play was much needed music to his ears. The Wizards are 15-7 this season when their bench outscores the opponent’s bench.
“It means I’m not doing it by myself,” Beal said in recognition of his teammates. “I’ll never take all the credit for a win, because there are 14 other guys who are all stepping up. We all know our game–we know John’s [Wall] out. He’ll be out for a while. We’re not making excuses about it. We’re accepting who we have we’re running with what we have, so it’s always next man up. Tomas and Tim are doing a great job of running the PG position. Everybody is elevating their game. This is the time of year in which we need to so and take advantage right before All-Star.”
Deceivingly Decent Defense
If one sees that Washington gave up 119 points, many would have assumed they played poor defense. At times, the Wizards did give up irresponsible baskets, but when playing the third ranked scoring team in the NBA at 110.7 points per game it is not too surprising to give up 119. Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan were a combined 17-of-36 from the field. The Wizards forced 18 turnovers, which they turned into 23 points against the Raptors. The home team came away with 16 fast break points. Washington is now 10-3 this season when they record 10-or-more steals.
“They started running the ball and we didn't do a good job getting back in transition,” Casey said. “They came out of the locker room running and we didn't catch their speed so that was the difference in the first part of the third quarter.”
Beware of Hot Takes
With the Wizards now 3-0 in their most recent stretch without Wall, some may think that there was addition by subtraction. That is not the case. In the long run, Washington will be significantly better off with Wall than without his talents. Sure, there is more shot equality for the rotation players when Wall is not in the lineup, but much of their recent success is just fueled by the togetherness of the team in a time of need. As Brooks likes to say, the Wizards are not a better team without Wall but can be a better one before his return.
"They played probably one of their best games, I thought, against OKC,” Casey said before the game. “As hard as I've seen them play in a long time. They executed, they turned the ball over, they passed the ball, got it from side to side and really, really competed at a very high level. So, we've seen that before. A lot of times, guys lose one of their star players and the rest of the guys [pick it up] and they have picked it up. They picked up the tempo, the hard play, offensive execution, ball movement."
Next Game: The Wizards begin a three-game road trip starting with the Magic on Saturday.