AllNBA & WNBA

Green sparks Wizards in comeback win vs Clippers (11-20-18)



By:Ryan Fowler

Headline Photo From: Brad Mills-USA Today Sports

WASHINGTON— as Los Angeles entered Capital One Arena on Tuesday night, changes seemed imminent in the home locker room. Coming off of a blowout loss to Portland, the Wizards knew they needed something to change, and fast.

Amid a 5-11 start, there were reports the team would listen to trade offers for All-Star guards Wall and Beal. As news broke prior to the game that Wall was seen yelling at Coach Scott Brooks during a prior practice, things seemed like they were only going downhill. ”It happened. We talked about it, we moved on,” Brooks said. ”I’m not here to throw anything in anybody’s face.”

Wall, Beal and offseason addition Jeff Green each scored 10 in the fourth quarter as Washington outscored Los Angeles 39-23 to pull out a much needed win.

”We’ve still got a lot of stuff to fix,” Beal said. ”I’m still not happy. I know everybody’s not happy with where we are.”

The Wizards, after being down 24 and showing no sign of improved defense cut the Clippers lead to 95-86 after three quarters and took a 115-113 lead on Wall’s layup with 2:33 to play.

Tobias Harris scored a season-high 29 points, Montrezl Harrell had 20, and Lou Williams and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander each added 17 for the Clippers, who had won five straight. Williams was ejected with 34.5 seconds to play.

”You have a team, you can see they’re wounded, and I really thought we had a chance to be up 30 at halftime,” Los Angeles coach Doc Rivers said. ”And you can just see it we kind of got the lead, kind of turned down the energy.”