Wizards 130
Hornets 126
December 29, 2018 | Capital One Arena | Washington, D.C.
The Washington Wizards will officially be without the services of five-time All-Star point guard John Wall for the remainder of the 2018-19 season. As much as fans may want to tank for the likes of Zion Williamson, the team is not willing to call it a season just yet. Scott Brooks maintains that the organization will continue to try to win every game and Bradley Beal still has playoff aspirations despite beginning the day 10 games below .500. I would not expect either of them to say anything differently, but they may just be kidding themselves since the draft lottery may just be their last hope for improvement during the Wall era.
Unlike Friday night when Washington could not manufacture a bucket against lowly Chicago, offense came with ease 24 hours later. You may have an urge to say ‘Everybody Eats’ as Beal regrettably quoted from the movie Paid in Full last season when the Wizards were having initial success without Wall who had undergone knee surgery. Don’t do it. A reporter foolishly tried to bait Beal by mentioning the phrase in a question and Beal immediately rolled his eyes before asking, “you about to do that again?” In a league where stars win championships, the Wizards are not better without a fully healthy Wall (especially come playoff time). But enough of that soapbox, to the game.
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If you bet Brooks that Washington would win with three 20-point scorers and none of them were Beal, then you would be a little bit richer tonight. The head coach joked that he was astonished by that fact. A day after Beal had zero help from the rest of the team, he got everything he could ever want. Beal did finish with a respectable 19 points, career-high six steals, and five assists in 38 minutes of play, but it was the other guys on the team who helped secure the victory.
Trevor Ariza had a team-high 24 points, nine assists, and seven rebounds in 41 minutes of work, getting close to what would have been his second career triple-double. Thomas Bryant had a double-double with 21 points on 9-of-13 shooting and 10 rebounds in 36 minutes. Tomas Satoransky had 20 points including a season-high four triples and six assists. Jeff Green had 13 points, seven rebounds, and seven assists. That is a solid contribution from the Game 37 starting lineup that ideally would have had John Wall, Otto Porter, Markieff Morris, and Dwight Howard suiting up instead. I would joke that when healthy, Washington had a better five-man lineup inactive on Saturday than they could field in reality.
More notably was Brooks giving Troy Brown meaningful playing time as a member of the eight-man rotation. In 18 minutes of play, the rookie had a career-high nine points, all in the first half, to go along with two rebounds and two assists. Not overly impressive, but the 19-year old certainly made the most of the opportunity and is in line for playing time in the future ahead of Ron Baker who was a DNP-CD. Brown had a nice dunk and three-pointer, but I was most impressed with his hustle in the second half to secure an offensive rebound and immediately get it to Trevor Ariza who hit a big three-pointer with each side trading haymakers. Sam Dekker and Chasson Randle combined for 24 points and eight rebounds to complement an overall solid bench showing.
“Tonight Troy [Brown Jr], he got an opportunity,” Brooks said about the rookie seeing action. “I thought he played well. I give Go-Go Head Coach [Jarell] Christian and their staff, the Go-Go, credit. They worked with him a lot and he came in and played like he has been with us for a month so that is great. Hopefully, he can build on this, and make three out of four every night.”
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Washington had 35 assists on 48 made field goals and shot 51.6 percent from the field. The ball movement style of play is what they are going to have to do if they wish to stay competitive the rest of the season because they are without their second All-Star and teams can easily load up on Beal as Chicago did on Friday. Beal admits that he has learned that he can no longer try to do everything by himself because it is simply not possible. Obviously, playing hard was also instrumental for the Wizards as they narrowly won the rebounding margin, 42-41, to improve to 7-0 when winning the battle of the boards. There were still a handful of instances of getting back on transition defense to slowly because of worrying about what happened on the offensive end, but sometimes that is just human nature.
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Back to Beal’s desire to reach the playoffs for the fifth time in six years. It is admirable, but it will also certainly be difficult. Sure, Washington is only 4.5 games back of the No. 6 seed in the East right now, but they also boast a horrendous 4-16 record on the road. Wall is done for the season, Dwight Howard is out for at least a month or two (likely longer), and Markieff Morris is off to see a specialist for his upper back/neck stiffness stemming from getting clocked by LeBron James two weeks ago and reaggravating it on the road in Detroit. Otto Porter (right knee strain/contusion) should be back on Wednesday against the Hawks assuming all goes well in practice on Monday. I asked Beal what he thought a realistic goal was for the team given the unfortunate news for Wall and he turned it back to me to see what I thought and then presumed that the media thinks Washington is already finished (which was an accurate assumption of my opinion). Beal hates losing and would probably despise the idea of tanking so I did not expect him to say anything besides making it to the postseason, but he is not naïve and understands they have a lot of ground to make up and limited time.
https://twitter.com/HoopDistrictDC/status/1079218049520230401
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