Story By: Sol Tucker
Photos By: Sol Tucker
Las Vegas, NV–
When your organization says they have seen enough from your top draft pick, the rest of the young guys need to move forward to try and make some noise to be part of this organization for the 2026-27 season or see where they fit into a G League team opportunity…. but sometimes, this leaves your squad undermanned.
This is exactly what happened for the Wizards tonight without AJ Dybanstra tonight against the Clippers. After just two games where Dybanstra scored 27 points in his debut and 23 points against the Kings, they had seen enough of what they were looking for and expected from ” their guy” as Wizards General Manager Will Dawkins has described him as all through this entire process.
For most of the entire game tonight the Wizards stayed close and after the first quarter the game was tied at 25, then through a few turnovers and miscues they let the Clippers creep back in the game and take a 52-51 lead at halftime, that was mostly sparked by the effort from the Clippers Kobe Sanders, who finished with 26 points for the Clippers.
Sanders was the 50th pick in the 2025 draft for the Clippers has shown quite a bit of improvement over last season where he finished the season averaging 7.3 points per game in 68 games.
The Wizards made it a game late after they were outscored by the Clippers in third quarter by a score of 30-19 and went into the fourth up 12 points, 82-70.
Washington went on another mini 8-0 run in the fourth quarter which made it 86-78 LA with a little more than six minutes remaining in the fourth. However, the Wizards made it
Seth Trimble continued to make his case to make this team out of Summer League with 24 points on 8-for-12 shooting to lead five Wizards in double-figures. Chris Livingston also showed he wants to make a spot in this team finishing with 20 points (8-15 FGs) and nine rebounds.
The Wizards will have to wait until Saturday to find out who they will face and if they have a chance to advance to any of the championship round play.
