
(Photo: Ned Dishman/Getty Images)
Bradley Beal hits a pair of free throws late in the fourth quarter, the fans at Capital One Arena exhale. Those shots put the Wizards ahead 120-116 with 8.2 seconds left, a comfortable lead at best.
Then Kyle Lowry drove in for a layup to pull the Raptors within two with 4.1 seconds left. Scott Brooks calls timeout.
With the Wizards having an inbound chance, they knew the Raptors would foul quickly. No problem, make a couple free throws and you go back up four.
Unfortunately for the Wizards, the inbound play didn’t go as planned. Beal lost control of the basketball and was called for a fouling Kyle Lowry after losing the ball with three seconds left. All of a sudden, Lowry had a chance to tie the game if he made both shots.
Lowry missed the first free throw but made the second, but that first missed free throw would be the difference as the Wizards hung on for a 122-199 win. The win would be the Wizards third in a row and their first regular season home win over the Raptors since March 31, 2013.
Looking down at the court in the aftermath of the win, I caught Scott Brooks heading off the court and into the tunnel with a look of relief on his face.
The Timeout
“Perfect way to lose weight”, was how Brooks opened his media session.
If Brooks lost weight during the final minute of the game, he burned some significant calories when he ran down the court just to get the referee’s attention to call a timeout. Sadly there’s no tape but to give you an idea, Brooks went not just past half court. He went inside the three-point line where the action was happening. Brooks was yelling, jumping, and waving his arms to get the ref’s attention after Beal missed a step back jumper and Otto Porter Jr. came down with the rebound with the Wizards ahead 115-112 with 58 seconds left.
Keef Coming Up Clutch
Markieff Morris came up big in the fourth quarter. With the Wizards ahead 104-99, the Raptors went on a 6-0 run to put them in front of the Wizards by one. Teams would trade points for a bit. After Gortat threw a pass out of bounds, the Raptors responded with a jumper by Serge Ibaka. The Wizards answered with a Gortat bank shot but then Kyle Lowry answered with an and-one. Tomas Satoransky, who has done a great job the last three games with John Wall’s injury, got a floater and then Beal tied it at 110 with a driving layup. Thanks to two free throws by Morris as well as a three later on, the Wizards would take the lead for good.
Sharing is Caring
When the Wizards announced that John Wall would miss 6-8 weeks due to knee surgery, the Wizards knew their offense would lose a significant scorer. In turn it had to make everybody, from the starters to the bench, work together. Over the last three games without Wall, one of their biggest strengths was the way they shared the ball. The team combined for 40 assists in a 129-104 win over the Hawks Saturday, 27 in a 102-96 victory over the Thunder and 30 on Thursday night. That’s a total of 97 assists in the last three games.
"Everybody eats, everybody eats, everybody eats," Beal said about the team's ball movement. "That’s our moto. Everybody eats when we move the ball. It starts on defense, if we’re all collectively on the same page defensively and we get out in transition, get some easy ones, then we’re moving it. That’s fun basketball. Everybody gets to touch it, everybody gets shots. It makes life easy. It just keeps the locker room close, it keeps our comradery going. At the same time, that’s the type of team we need to be to be successful."
Panda has a big third quarter, Meeks has a big fourth
Bradley Beal, as he’s done throughout the season when John Wall was hurt, continued to step up and be a leader. Beal was off to a slow start in the first half as he only made two free throws in the entire first 24 minutes. Beal couldn’t make a shot, shooting 0-for-6 from the field and 0-for-3 from behind the arc in the first half. In the third, he turned it on, scoring 17 points. In the fourth he added eight points to finish with 27.
"He’s our main scorer now that John’s [Wall] on the shelf for a little bit, so everything goes through him," Jodie Meeks said about Beal. "As a team, we have to do a good job of helping him out and giving him some offensive scoring. On the defensive end, try to help him out as well."
Beal had 11 points in the third quarter not even three full minutes in and that stretch included three straight three-pointers. A big turnaround.
As for Meeks, he had a big fourth quarter, which began by draining back-to-back three’s. Meeks finished with 10 points, his first time reaching double figures for the first time since Dec. 29th’s Wizards win over the Rockets, an 11-game drought.