Story By: Sol Tucker
Photos By: Sol Tucker
Washington, D.C–
There have been quite a few of these close games over the past few weeks and perhaps the Wizards and their practice on clutch shooting in these games has paid off again.
Quite a few of those games have involved Kyle Kuzma and tonight it was his 29 points and a huge three pointer buy Kentavious Caldwell-Pope that delivered the knockout blow to a young gun hot shooting Oklahoma City, 122-118.
The big news of the evening was that Bradley Beal was not able to play tonight due to being placed in coronavirus protocols just a few hours before the game. This is the second time he has been placed into these protocols in the past month after he had announced that he finally had taken the vaccine to help him and all that are around him.
Without Beal, the Wizards certainly got a boost with Montrezl Harrell back in the line-up. He provided a couple pivotal basket in the second half including a rim shaking dunk that seemed to get the crowd back in the flow and contributed to the run to end the third quarter.
The Wizards were still behind by as many as 4 points (112-108) with over 5 minutes left in regulation. However, a Spencer Dinwiddie layup, Kuzma three and Montrezl Harrell dunk gave Washington the lead for good.
Dinwiddie added 22 points, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope added 16 points and Corey Kispert added 12 more on 5-of-9 shooting. Rui Hachimura also played 14 minutes, scoring 7 points on 3-of-5 shooting.
“We got off to a good start on this homestand with another push at the end, we liked the energy, but we need to continue short on players and make sure we don’t keep getting down and having to battle back late, said Wizards Head Coach Wes Unseld Jr.
This is the start of a 12-game homestand for the Wizards. They will face the Magic tomorrow night and wrap up the week with Portland on Saturday night.
