The Washington Wizards have turned their game against the L.A. Clippers 24 points behind, but nobody is satisfied in the capital. Meanwhile, the Toronto Raptors and Portland Trail Blazers were able to celebrate narrow favourite victories.
The Raptors hadn’t imagined this guest appearance to be quite so arduous, especially not after the first quarter, when they were already leading with 12 points and seemed to live up to their role as favourites. But the Magic became better and better in the consequence and put above all defensively a tooth on. When they became really strong in the third quarter (38 points in the run), they even went into the final quarter with a 2-point lead. So it was the final phase that mattered – and this phase was also a tough one.
The Raptors missed it, the pendulum swung back and forth. 2,3 seconds before the end Danny Green made a momentous mistake when he could not check Evan Fournier and he scored the equalizer by Dunk. But the compensation was not long in coming: Coach Nick Nurse painted in the following time-out a play just for Green, who caught Kyle Lowry’s throw-in and sank 0.5 seconds before the end of the game the decisive Jumper from the middle distance. Orlando had no more time out, a desperate throw from Nikola Vucevic over the whole field missed his goal.
“Most coaches wouldn’t trust anyone who made such a mistake just before, but Nick trusts us all 100 percent,” Green (13 points) said gratefully. “He encourages us and allows us to continue despite our mistakes. It was nice to hit that throw after I missed a lot of the game.”
Especially from downtown the Raptors had no luck in throwing (9/34 3FG), but this had to do with the good Magic-Defense. Topscorer of the guests was Kawhi Leonard with 18 points, Pascal Siakam with 15 points and Serge Ibaka with 14 points. In the Magic, Fournier (27 points) shone, Vucevic came on 14 and 18 rebounds, Aaron Gordon scored 16 points.
The latest news from Washington didn’t paint a good picture of the wizards, the whole team should be available by trade. When the capital city’s team was already trailing by 24 points in the second quarter, you could have guessed why – nothing fit together, nothing wanted to succeed. Instead of falling apart completely again, the wizards tore their belts this time and even spun the game at the end. In the end they celebrated the biggest victory of the so far messed up season.
Especially John Wall (30 points) and Bradley Beal (27) showed their still existing class and led their team with 10 points each in the last quarter to victory. Wall was last fined by the team after he allegedly insulted his coach Scott Brooks in a training session. “It happened. We talked about it and look forward,” Brooks remarked after the game. “I’m not here to put something on anybody’s bread.”
That wasn’t necessary either. The guests were annoyed about a missed chance in the end, they had taken too much of their foot off the gas in the second quarter and could not stop Washington’s furious comeback afterwards. “We still have a lot to fix,” Beal said anyway. “I’m still not satisfied. And I know that no one here is satisfied with where we stand right now.”
Besides the two guards, on the Wizards side it was Jeff Green with 20 points from the bench who won, while Austin Rivers was pale in the duel against his ex-team (and his father Doc) with 2 points. Tobias Harris, on the other hand, set a season high with 29 points, Montrezl Harrell with 20 points and Lou Williams and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander with 17 points each.
Page 1: Wizards celebrate 24-point comeback – Green saves the Raptors
Page 2: Shiver victory for Portland – Miami slides into crisis