Bradley Beal led the Washington Wizards with 29 points, 10 rebounds and four assists as they went on to defeat the Golden State Warriors 118-114. Russell Westbrook added 14 points, 20 rebounds and 10 assists.
The momentum shift was felt at the 2:44 mark of the fourth quarter, as Beal drove to the rim off the hesitation dribble and got the double pump layup to go plus the foul to make it a one-point game. From that moment on, you felt that Beal was on a mission, as he flexed out his muscles and hi-fived his teammates.
After the Warriors and Wizards exchanged two points on the next two possessions, Davis Bertans ran from the right corner to the top and drilled the 3-pointer off the feed from Beal to give Washington a 110-108 lead.
It essentially became a back and forth game the rest of the way for both teams, but the Warriors had an opportunity to tie things up late in the game after Andrew Wiggins deflected Westbrook’s pass as Kent Bazemore recovered at half court. Wiggins got the pass as he was going towards the rim for the layup, but couldn’t get it to go as the ball rimmed out.
Beal scored seven and assisted on five of Washington’s last 16 points of the game, but before that, it was Westbrook who stepped up for the home team, as he single-handedly cut the Warriors’ lead from seven to two in under a minute.
After a tremendous stretch that saw Stephen Curry make an NBA-record 72 threes in a 10-game span and score 30+ points in 11 straight games, which passed the late and great Kobe Bryant, the two-time MVP struggled mightily in this one, as he had just 18 points on 7-of-25 shooting from the field.
“It was a great run,” Curry said. “It was something that hadn’t been done before, and it was going to end at some point. Now you’ve got to start another one.”
Part of the reason why Curry struggled was due to the defense from another former MVP. Westbrook was responsible for one key stop that perhaps ignited the Wizards’ run, as he got up to heavily contest Curry, who was driving down the middle, to prevent what could’ve been an easy layup.
“That’s the thing that Russell probably won’t get a lot of credit for, but he did a great job of guarding him, putting pressure on him, making him take tough shots, Brooks said. “It wears him out. Every now and then, an amazing player like Steph will have an off game, and a lot to do with it was Russell.”
With this win, the Wizards moved into the 10th spot in the Eastern Conference, which would afford them a spot for the play-in tournament if the season were to end today. They have 14 games left in the regular season.
