The Washington Wizards take the important victory in game 3 of the first round against the Toronto Raptors. Both sides get down to brass tacks – although the wizards can ultimately achieve a harmless success.
What this duel was about was noticeable from the very first second. The Wizards were facing a must-win game, and they don’t want to fall 3-0 against the No.1 seed of the Eastern Conference. The initial minutes were correspondingly competitive and also heated.
First Markieff Morris and OG Anunoby got in each other’s way and had to be separated from the other players and coaches shortly before the escalation – that was already in the third minute of play! In the beginning of the third quarter Kyle Lowry got a flagrant foul after a hard entry against Bradley Beal and a few minutes later John Wall and Serge Ibaka also had a fight. Again, the players could be separated just before the situation seemed to get out of control.
Basketball was also played and from Wizards’ point of view quite successfully. Toronto got off to a better start, but Washington took the lead with a 12-0 run towards the end of the first quarter. In the second section, the hosts extended their lead to 13 points before finally making a decisive break after the break.
Washington convinced with a good defense, as the team from the US capital forced the Raptors to lose 19 balls. The wizards converted these into 28 of their own counters. “They came out and beat us up,” was the conclusion of the not necessarily satisfied Raptors coach Dwane Casey. “We just let it happen.”
DeMar DeRozan became the top scorer of his team. The Shooting Guard scored 23 points, while Kyle Lowry laid down 19 points and 8 assists (at 5 turnovers). Nevertheless, the Raptors backcourt had to admit defeat against the outstanding duo Wall and Beal.
Both scored 28 points each with good odds (Wall: 12/23 FG, Beal: 10/19 FG). Wall also distributed 14 assists, collected 6 rebounds and grabbed 4 steals. “It was a good evening,” said Scott Brooks about the performance of his two top performers. The Wizards coach should also have been pleased about important support from Marcin Gortat (16 points) and Mike Scott and Kelly Oubre Jr. (12 each).
At the Raptors only Jonas Valanciunas (14) and Anunoby (12) landed in double figures. Jakob Pöltl played almost ten minutes and scored 5 points (2/3 FG) and 4 rebounds as well as 1 block.
However, this victory is worth relatively little if the wizards can’t catch up in Game 4 during the night from Sunday to Monday. Even then things will probably get heated again.
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