Russell Westbrook and Bradley Beal ran through a brisk six focuses in a dazzling 3.8-second succession that moved the Washington Wizards to a 149-146 rebound prevail upon the meeting Brooklyn Nets on Sunday night.
“At this time, we don’t have nothing to lose,” Westbrook said. “It’s win or go home.”
The Wizards, somewhere around five focuses with the shot clock killed, had appeared to be en route to a fifth consecutive loss.
“Honestly, Ish [Smith] just told me to push it and pull it,” Beal said after the game. “That is all we could have done in that situation.”
Beal ran up the court and pulled up to nail a 3-pointer that brought Washington inside two purposes of Brooklyn with 8.1 seconds remaining. As Nets forward Joe Harris went to rapidly inbound the ball at the baseline, partner Kevin Durant cut toward the bushel. The miscommunication permitted Wizards watch Garrison Mathews to take the ball in the corner and dish it out to Westbrook, who covered another 3 with 4.3 seconds to play.
With the Wizards sticking to a single-point lead, the Nets took a break. At the point when play continued, Nets monitor Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot figured out how to get a decent glance at a layup in the last two seconds of the game, however his endeavor moved off the edge.
Two made free tosses from Beal fixed Washington’s success.
“We had that game,” Nets guard Kyrie Irving said. “It should’ve been ours, so we just look at ourselves in the mirror and see what we can correct as individuals and as a group — especially on effort. I couldn’t guard a stick today. Those guys were just going right around me, and I was getting frustrated a little bit.”
The Nets drove by as numerous as 18 points at Capital One Arena and had three 25-point scorers in Harris, Irving and Durant. The Wizards and Nets’ consolidated 295 focuses added up to the second-most noteworthy scoring non-extra time game in the previous 25 seasons, as indicated by ESPN Stats and Information research.
Yet, protectively, Brooklyn kept on battling. The Nets surrendered 72 focuses in the paint, tied for their third most permitted in a game in the course of the last 25 seasons and the most permitted in a challenge since 2017. Beal had the option to score 22 of his 37 absolute focuses in the final quarter. The Wizards outscored the Nets 12-2 in grip time.
“It was the first game all year I had a White Claw,” Wizards coach Scott Brooks said. “I wanted to enjoy it. This is a good feeling. I wanted our players to enjoy it. We fought. We fought hard.
“We’ve done it all year, and the basketball gods gave us a break tonight.”
The Nets’ protective issues permitted the Wizards to remain in the game. While the last succession had all the earmarks of being the zenith of the Nets’ breakdown, Irving said that Harris’ turnover and the resulting 3 were a “microcosm” of the issues that tormented Brooklyn throughout the evening.
“It doesn’t come out of one play,” Harris added. “But same time, I mean, had I not made [the turnover], we wouldn’t be sitting here talking about loss.”
Nets mentor Steve Nash called Harris’ turnover “a lamentable second” however said it wasn’t at fault for the misfortune.
“When you give up 149 points, that’s one error in about 50 defensive lapses,” Nash said. “So not good enough defensively, and we can look at the missed layup or the turnover for the 3 there, but we shouldn’t have been in that position. We had a big lead early, and we let them stay around a long, long time until their confidence grew. They’re a desperate [group] looking for a win, and we gave them a chance and gave them life.”
For Durant, “This is one of the ones you’ve quite recently had the chance to rid of.”
