Scott Brooks revenge game complete!
The Washington Wizards, without their head coach Wes Unseld, Jr., lost to the Portland Trail Blazers, 115-110 on Saturday night at Capital One Arena.
Portland entered tonight’s game without their star backcourt of Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum. You would think that the Wizards would have taken advantage of that. But, the #SoWizards bug struck again.
Corey Kispert started at guard in place of Bradley Beal and scored 11 of his 13 points, making all of his three shots in the first half. But the bigger picture was that the Blazers were leading 68-57 at the first half as Anfernee Simons scored 26 of his 31 points (including going 7-of-10 from the three point line) led the way for Portland. Washington just didn’t have an answer for him in the half.
That PnR chemistry @anferneesimons | @bosnianbeast27 pic.twitter.com/IRBzX3DGDi
— Portland Trail Blazers (@trailblazers) January 16, 2022
Simons cooled off in the third quarter. But it wasn’t enough to stop Portland from extending to 18 points at one point. But Jusuf Nurkic remained stead throughout, where he had 23 points and 14 rebounds tonight, though he did foul out with less than two minutes left in the game.
While the Wizards were able to get the lead down in the fourth quarter and make things interesting in the end, Portland was in control of this game from start to finish, in particular due to forcing Washington to commit 20 turnovers and scoring 21 points off of them. It is a well deserved win for them.
Spencer Dinwiddie led Washington with 27 points. Kyle Kuzma and Montrezl Harrell added 16 points each.
The Wizards’ homestand continues next Monday when they play the Philadelphia 76ers. Tip off is at 2 p.m. ET.