Westbrook’s wizardry halts Pacers
Washington, 21: After one loss back when the Washington Wizards were struggling through a Coronavirus-disrupted, injury-depleted and defense-optional stretch of the season that put them 15 games below 0.500, Russell Westbrook gathered his teammates to speak his mind.
According to coach Scott Brooks, Westbrook delivered a “very passionate, very direct talk” that essentially amounted to: We will not miss the postseason.
Might have seemed farfetched at the time. Turns out Westbrook was true to his word.
Westbrook nearly produced a triple-double Thursday night, Bradley
Beal scored 25 points and the Wizards reached the NBA playoffs as the Eastern Conference’s No.
8 seed by overwhelming the Indiana Pacers 142-115 in the play-in round Thursday night.
Washington led by as many as 38 and now faces Joel Embiid and the No. 1 seed Philadelphia 76ers in the first round, marking quite a turnaround for Brooks’ crew, which was
17-32 before going on a 17-6 run over the regular season’s last six weeks.
A little more than a week after breaking Oscar Robertson’s career record for most regular-season triple-doubles, Westbrook finished Thursday with 18 points, 15 rebounds and eight assists, and it was
Beal — second in the NBA in scoring two years in a row — whose 3-pointer opened up a 30-point lead at 98-68 with about four minutes left in the third quarter.
Domantas Sabonis had
19 points, 11 rebounds and
10 assists before fouling out early in the fourth quarter for the Pacers, whose run of five consecutive playoff appearances ended in coach Nate Bjorkgren’s first year in charge.
The Wizards lost the game at the Boston Celtics
118-100 on Tuesday and Westbrook was hardly himself.
He shot 6 for 18. He had only five assists, less than half of his league-leading average of 11.7. —