Julius Randle had his way in this one, as he dropped 37 points including 7-of-10 shooting on 3-pointers in the New York Knicks’ 131-113 blowout win over the Washington Wizards.
The seven threes from the big man didn’t surprise Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau.
“Adding the 3-point shot to his game…really changed things not only for him, but for our team,” Thibodeau said.
RJ Barrett chipped in 25 points and five assists. Alec Burks added 20 points off the bench. Mitchell Robinson had 16 points and 12 rebounds.
New York was already up by eight entering the second quarter, but they went on to outscore Washington 30-18 in that period, pulling away early.
“I don’t think we even arrived to the arena tonight, honestly,” Bradley Beal said. “We were still in the hotel today.”
The Knicks kept their foot on the gas the rest of the way, building a lead by as many as 31 points in the third after a third consecutive three from Randle in a less than a minute span.
The Wizards have lost nine of their last 11 games, coming after a stretch in which they won seven of their last eight.
Many people thought that the Wizards were turning their season around and could make a run to the playoffs. However, there has been a noticeable change in the team’s effort on a nightly basis. Beal, however, is well aware of how his team can make more of an effort on the court.
“You can control playing hard,” Beal said. “You can control being physical. You can control running the floor. You can control boxing your man out. You can control setting a screen. You can control coming off the screen very hard. You can control not turning the ball over. There’s a lot of stuff we can control that we don’t do.”
The Wizards are currently four games out a play-in spot, and with only 30 games left in the regular season in addition to having to jump several teams, they’re going to have to follow Beal’s lead urgently in order to have a chance to qualify for the postseason for the first time since the 2017-18 season.
