Story By: Sol Tucker
Photos By: Sol Tucker
Washington, D.C–
Tonight was the night Wizards fans have been waiting weeks for… the debut of Trae Young. Even with a game minute restriction, he was able to put on a few dazzling moves finishing the game with 12 points and six assists in 19 minutes. All of which came with praise from Wizards Head Coach Brian Keefe.
“Trae is ready to help this team in any way possible and tonight was just a portion of what he is capable of, and we will continue to monitor his progress over the next couple of weeks and ramp up his minutes as time goes on,” said Keefe.
Prior to the game the Wizards got another bit of good news as Anthony Davis was cleared to return to basketball activities. While there is no timetable on his return, this is more good news for a team that continues to show some lots of upsides with the young guys improving night after night,
While Young had a good night in his first night back since December, it was Juju Reese that settled in nicely tonight with 18 points and 20 rebounds in his most game action in the NBA so far this season. Reese recorded the highest rebound total by any rookie in a game this season. He became Washington’s first rookie with 20 rebounds since Tom Gugliotta in 1993.
The Jazz, who has quite a young team themselves had a night from Ace Bailey, who scored a career high 32 points, of which he hit on 21 of those in a dominating first half.
Perhaps there were so many good things that happened tonight for the Wizards that we can’t overlook the performance of Leaky Black, who kept the Wizards in the game late hitting a huge three pointer with 2:39 remaining off a Will Riley assist cutting the Jazz lead to 113-107.
Isaiah Collier finished any hopes of the Wizards coming back scoring 5 of his 27 points in the final 2 minutes closing out the night for the Wizards.
Up next for the Wizards, a Sunday night trip to the Big Easy to face New Orleans.
