After the Washington Wizards secured a dominant Game 2 victory on the road to take a 2-0 series lead over the Toronto Raptors, Paul Pierce walked off the floor at the Air Canada Centre thinking about a sweep.
The Truth tallied 10 points, including a pair of threes, to go with two rebounds, two assists, a steal and a block as Washington handled Toronto 117-106 on Tuesday night, and on the way to the locker room, Washington Post’s Michael Lee heard him declaring that he didn’t want to go through customs again—and the only way for D.C. to manage that would be to win the next two at home and complete the four-game sweep.
Paul Pierce shouting on the way to the locker room after #wizards Game 2 win: “I don’t want to go through customs no more.”
— Michael Lee (@MrMichaelLee) April 22, 2015
But with his fifth-seeded Wiz seizing control over the fourth-seeded Raptors, Paul believes his squad still needs to stay greedy when they return home to the Verizon Center.
“We said we were going to go out there, this is going to be a hard game, put it out on the line and see what happens,” Paul explained after the game. “Our mindset, I thought we came in with the right mindset, not being satisfied after winning Game 1, trying to come out here and get Game 2. And that’s the tone I try to set here in the locker room and in practice, saying ‘Look man, we want to be greedy, nothing’s guaranteed.’ When you win two on an opponent’s home floor, you start to create that doubt in their heads, and hopefully that’s something we did.”
Paul was not quite the potent offensive weapon he was in Game 1, which was just fine for the Wizards, who got 54 combined points from their heralded starting backcourt of John Wall and Bradley Beal. Paul played a huge role in boosting the team’s young stars—both their game and their confidence—but was content with Wall and Beal getting the headlines after the win.
All season long, he has said that those two players were the team’s leaders and that he was just there to help out. Yet all season long, cameras have caught No. 34 talking to Wall about something he could have done differently a previous play, or pumping up Otto Porter—the second-year small forward believed to eventually succeed Paul—and making sure the young player stays confident, or even discussing post-up strategies with reserve forward Kevin Seraphin.
And again, all season long, when a teammate did something positive or made a game-changing play, The Truth was the first one there to congratulate him and give him a pat on the back.
“We were led today by our outstanding backcourt,” Paul said Tuesday night. “I thought John and Beal did a great job at leading us all game. You all saw their focus before the game, even at halftime those guys were very vocal today, very intense. I saw it in their eyes. They just did a good job at leading us today, and I’ve been saying this all year long: as they go, we go. We follow their lead, the way they come out aggressive, play with that type of aggression, it’s tough to beat us.”
The Wizards certainly looked tough to beat in Game 2, but much like Game 1, they got off to a bit of a rocky start. As in Game 1, Paul missed his first two attempts from the field—but just as in Game 1, he soon got back on track. While Toronto went up 4-0 then 7-3 early in Game 1, the Raps took a quick 12-2 lead in Game 2.
In both first quarters, Washington recuperated but still trailed at the conclusion. However, unlike the first quarter in Game 1, Marcin Gortat got hot early in Game 2. The Wizards center made all five of his shots, scooped up four rebounds, blocked a pair of shots and even came up with a steal while playing the entire period. The second quarter was when the momentum tipped toward the visiting team.
Beal got hot and went off for 16 points in the period, including a pair of shots from deep, and Wall piled up five more assists to match his first-quarter output, as the Wizards turned a five-point deficit into an 11-point lead.
Though No. 34 only scored five points in the period, he played a monumental role in the Wizards turning the tide of the game. He went 1-for-3 from beyond the arc in the period, but the misses were almost as important as the make, because the Raptors couldn’t let him keep shooting.
With more than 2,000 career makes from downtown, it was only a matter of time before Paul got hot if the Raptors gave him room, so the Toronto defense was spread thin. While Paul occupied one of the wing defenders, Wall was able to penetrate and draw the defense in like a magnet, then kick the ball out to either The Truth or Beal. Not wanting to get burned by No. 34 again, the Raptors defense cheated toward the future Hall of Famer, leaving Beal to face a weakened defense.
James Johnson may be able to check Paul Pierce one-on-one but does it matter that much if Pierce is just a useful decoy?
— Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It) April 22, 2015
Once Beal realized he could pick apart the threadbare defense, the Wizards surged out in front and never looked back, leading the rest of the way. At halftime, Beal was interviewed on the court and came off as genuinely upset, something that is highly unusual for such a calm, mellow and mild-mannered player like Beal.
He was later caught on camera jawing with Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry. A reporter asked The Truth after the game is Beal playing angry was something he liked to see from his typically-reserved teammate.
“I think a lot of the stuff that you see that’s coming out, it’s always been there, I just think I kind of manifest it to another level,” Paul said. “You’ve just got to stay poised. When we’re winning like that and other teams try to get in your head, you’ve just got to stay poised and calm. It’s really about basketball, it’s not about that other stuff: the talking, the pushing, the shoving. It’s about going out here and trying to get a win. All the other stuff is going to play out how it’s going to play out, the referees are going to have control of the game, and at the end of the day we’re trying to get a win.”
Beal finished with a playoff career-high 28 points, and Wall added a playoff career-high 17 assists, but the Raptors made a pair of runs in the second half that almost made all those numbers insignificant.
The first came right after halftime. Paul split a pair of free throws on the first possession of the third period to put Washington ahead 61-49. Then a few missed shots, a couple of turnovers and a handful of makes by the Wiz cut the lead to just two.
After a defensive three seconds was called on Toronto, Wizards head coach Randy Wittman called a timeout to calm his team down. Wall responded by knocking down the technical free throw, then adding a long jumper for insurance.
The Truth added a deep three, then Nene tipped in a miss, and Beal drained a pull-up jumper—and suddenly the Wizards had gone back up by 12.
Washington held a double-digit lead the rest of the game, but a 14-4 run midway through the fourth period allowed the Raptors to claw their way back in, and the Wizards led by just 10 with more than three minutes to go and a rowdy Air Canada Centre on its feet.
The Wizards managed to hold on by playing smart offense and taking care of the ball, thanks in part to Paul helping to keep things calm for Washington. Wall also was exceptional late, scoring 14 points and dishing out seven assists while turning it over just twice in the second half, which earned him some serious praise from The Truth.
“He’s the best passer in the game, he led the league in assists,” Paul said. “When he’s going like that, you see him racking up assists like that, and then putting the scoring with it, he’s the best point guard in the league. The combination of those two things and the defense, I don’t see a better point guard, and he showed it tonight.”
NEXT UP
The Wizards host the Raptors at the Verizon Center for Game 3, one which Wittman said would be harder to win than the first two.
“It’s hard winning four games in a series,” he said. “And as you continue to move on, the harder it gets. Game 3 on Friday is going to be harder to play in than these first two games. It just gets that way as the series moves on.”
Beal, who hardly resembled his usual self on Tuesday when all was said and done, was brief in his comments to the media, but he did mention the importance of keeping a strong state of mind.
“We’ve got to play like we’re down 0-2,” he said. “Nothing changes. We can’t stop being aggressive.”
For his part, Paul wants to see more games like the on Tuesday night, but he hopes his team has figured out how to hold onto late leads. Taking a big lead into the final period only to watch it disappear quickly and end in disaster became a trend for the Wizards late in the season as they were skidding, and The Truth thinks he has diagnosed the problem.
“We’ve got to run through the finish line,” he explained after the game on Tuesday. “Sometimes we get a big lead and—it’s like the tortoise and the hare. The hare just gets to messing around, chillin’ on the sideline; we’ve got to run through the finish line. Simple and plain. We can’t turn around and look back, look at the lead, we’ve got to just keep going, run through the finish line and we’ll be alright. When we’re up by 10, we gotta go up 20. When we’re up 20, I say let’s go up 30. So that’s one thing we have to improve on, but for the most part, I’m happy for the win.”
When a reporter asked Paul what it says that the team is up 2-0 after a pair of games on the road, the legendary small forward took it in stride and answered with a grin.
“It just says we’re up 2-0. We have to win four games to advance.”
Game 3 is scheduled for an 8 p.m. ET start on Friday and can be seen nationally on ESPN2.
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