After stumbling through their first five-game losing streak of the season, Paul Pierce and the Washington Wizards righted the ship emphatically on Saturday night.
The Wizards routed the Brooklyn Nets 114-77 at the Verizon Center thanks to a well-rounded team performance that saw every active Washington player get on the scoreboard. The Truth was only needed for two points, which he added in the first quarter despite not feeling his jump shot all game, and he added three rebounds, an assist and a steal in 23 minutes of action.
While Paul’s output wasn’t enormous, the Wizards came through with one of their best team performances of the season. All 13 Wizards to enter the game made the scoring column, and point guard John Wall came through with the team-high: just 17 points.
“It was a lot of not caring who shot the ball tonight and having team defense and helping each other out,” Wall said. “When we have fun, that is when we are at our best. We played the right way tonight.”
After the victory, Wizards head coach Randy Wittman told reporters his team had a much better state of mind going into the Nets game than they had in previous games. Wittman noted that the mentality of the player had become a bit of a hindrance as the slump dragged on, but he was glad to see them regroup in such an emphatic way.
“It’s not so much you’re in a rut and not playing the way we’re capable of, that’s going to happen,” Wittman said. “But it’s reacting and how you get out of it. I thought through a couple of these games in this stretch, that we kind of just were hoping we would go out and win a game. You know, ‘we need a game’ instead of going out and taking it and being aggressive.”
With star shooting guard Bradley Beal out for the game, the Wizards were led early by Paul and Wall. The two linked up on a play in the opening minutes of the game that informed all involved parties that the Wizards had figured it out. It was a play that developed because of Washington’s defense, something that The Truth has been pinpointing for days as a means for breaking out of their slide.
“It starts with the defense,” Paul said last week. “I’m going to continue to preach that. Once you have a defensive swagger around this league, teams are intimidated by that.”
On this particular play early in Saturday’s game, suffocating pressure by Nene trapped Nets big man Mason Plumlee against the baseline. And when Plumlee tried to snake a pass back to the wing, No. 34 was there for the interception.
The Truth snatched up the pass and within a second had his eyes up the court to find a streaking Wall. Paul fired a long outlet pass without even taking a dribble and hit Wall right on the money. The athletic point guard took the pass and flushed home an acrobatic dunk that put the home team up 8-2, sent the crowd into a frenzy and forced Brooklyn to call a timeout.
Because basketball is a game of give and take, and the Wizards move the ball exceptionally well most of the time, it was only fitting that Washington’s first offensive play out of that time out was Wall finding Paul on a slick backdoor cut for an easy basket.
That play only transpired after Beal’s replacement in the starting lineup, Otto Porter Jr., made one of those defensive hustle plays that he made so frequently at Georgetown University. Porter, the third overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft, made a terrific effort to swat the shot of Brook Lopez, who is four inches and about 80 pounds larger than Porter, to help establish a defensive presence early.
“I think the main thing is we got back to playing defense first,” Wall said. “Then a lot of guys touched the ball and we didn’t care who was scoring. In the losing streak we had, we got out to slow starts and had to come from behind. Tonight we had the opportunity to be up early.”
Those plays were part of an early 11-2 run that pushed Washington’s lead to 16-4 almost halfway through the first period. After dominating the first quarter and finishing it up by 11 points, 28-19, D.C. kept its foot on the gas. Behind nine points from Kris Humphries and six from Rasual Butler, the Wiz built their lead to 20 at the half.
The lead went as high as 30 in the third and nearly touched 40 in the fourth, allowing the Washington starters to get a hard-earned reprieve and enjoy their first victory in more than 10 days. None of Washington’s starters played a second in the final frame and the advantage swelled to 37 before the final bell. The Wiz never trailed, and the game was never tied after the opening bucket.
NEXT UP
The Wizards (32-20) host the Orlando Magic (16-38) on Monday night in another installment of a series that has been completely one-sided recently.
Washington has beaten Orlando all seven times the teams have met the last two years, including three times already this season by an average margin of five points.
The fourth and final showdown between the teams tips shortly after 7 p.m. ET on Monday at the Verizon Center and it will be shown locally on Comcast Sports Net.
RELATED LINKS
- Wizards end streak, throttle Nets (ESPN, February 7, 2015)
- Could Pierce move to bench to lead second unit? (Wiz Of Awes, February 8, 2015)
- NATCA Flight of the Night: Pierce finds Wall for dunk (Monumental Network, February 7, 2015)
- Wizards looking to build on strong performance (Washington Post, Feb. 8, 2015)
- Wall paces Wizards to rout of Nets (Washington Post, Feb. 7, 2015)
- Nets at Wizards: Game Book (NBA.com, Feb. 7, 2015)
Leave A Comment