Broken fast break seals defeat
For the second time in eight days, the Wizards left the Nuggets disgusted.
Down two points with five seconds remaining, the Nuggets had a 3-on-1 break, which, at minimum, should’ve tied the game. As Jamal Murray bolted down the left side of the court, Michael Porter Jr. and Facu Campazzo fanned out to the 3-point line instead of sinking toward the hoop for an easy layup.
The result? An errant Campazzo 3-pointer at the buzzer, which gave the Wizards a dramatic 112110 win.
“Four-on-one, somebody should go to the rim,” Murray said. “I thought Mike was going to the rim. … I should’ve shot it. I gave Facu a bad pass. … That’s why I put it on me. If I’m going to stop at the three, I gotta shoot it.”
Unsurprisingly, Nuggets coach Michael Malone saw the play as a wasted opportunity.
“We had a layup,” Malone said. “It’s a 3-on-1 break. All Michael Porter’s gotta do is cut to the basket. All Jamal Murray’s gotta do is push the ball and attack, but we didn’t get that.”
Added Porter: “I looked at the play afterwards. One of us could’ve easily cut. … We were just thinking, one of us is going to get a three. And if the shot goes in, no one’s talking about it.”
Instead, the Wizards escaped Ball Arena with another heartpounding win after beating Denver in Washington last week. The loss dropped the Nuggets to 17-15 with a four-game road trip, beginning Saturday in Oklahoma City, awaiting.
Murray had 13 of his 34 points in the fourth quarter, and Nikola Jokic added 24. Starting at power forward again, Porter Jr. regis
tered 18 points and 10 rebounds.
But the Nuggets, once again, suffered from self-inflicted errors. The Wizards scored 23 points off 18 Nuggets turnovers. In the second half, Washington owned the glass with 22 rebounds and 12 second-chance points.
Bradley Beal and Westbrook combined points in the win.
Both offenses cooked in the third quarter, though each team found vastly different methods to pay-dirt. Jokic and Murray each knocked down three 3pointers as part of a third-quarter deluge. Porter and Monte Morris added two more triples to aid Denver’s 34-point outburst.
In contrast, the Wizards got whatever they wanted inside. Whether off turnovers or simply insufficient defense, Washington poured in 22 points in the paint in the quarter alone. Denver’s five turnovers only greased the wheels. By the time it was over, the Nuggets found themselves in another dogfight against the Wizards, tied 88-all heading into the fourth.
Following Tuesday’s win over Portland — where Murray scored 19 of his 24 points in the fourth quarter — Denver’s point guard was honest about the im
Russell for 49 pact of not making the All-Star Game yet again.
“(The snub) carries on for the whole season,” Murray said. “I feel like I was banged up all season, still trying to fight through and play through it. I did OK.
“It’s not my first time not making it, so I’ll always come back next year, come back better, as I do every year,” he added. “Championship is the goal. It’s never, obviously you find some milestones, you miss out on
some, but there’s a lot more to achieve this season than just being an All-Star.”
In the five games entering Thursday night, Murray had authored a torrid stretch. He’d led the Nuggets with 32.8 points per game, including nearly five 3pointers per game on 54% 3point shooting.
The reality, though, was his surge came too late into the first half of the season.
“Joker’s in the All-Star Game and he’s going to represent us well,” Murray said.
Given how disjointed parts of the first half were, the Nuggets were fortunate to be down just 56-54 at the break. Similar to their loss in Washington eight days ago, the turnovers were glaring. The Nuggets coughed it up 10 times – twice the miscues the Wizards had.
But because of Jokic, Murray and Porter, the Nuggets hung around, even momentarily taking the lead in the second quarter. Jokic had 13 points and eight rebounds, dominating Mo Wagner in the paint in the first half. Murray added 12 points and six assists, including one to Porter in transition that fired up the entire bench.
Porter was active on the glass yet again. He snatched five rebounds and buried a couple of 3pointers before halftime.
BOULDER» Tad Boyle probably would be the first person to say an NCAA Tournament bid isn’t assured until Colorado sees its name in the 68-team bracket on Selection Sunday.
Yet the Buffaloes understood the three-game homestand scheduled to complete the regular season offered a huge opportunity to cement those credentials for the Big Dance. And on Thursday night, the Buffs got that final homestand started by looking every bit like an NCAA Tournament team.
Powered by a torrid shooting performance from Jeriah Horne and another memorable game from point guard McKinley Wright IV, the Buffs never trailed after USC converted the game’s opening basket, dominating the 19th-ranked Trojans for an 80-62 win at the CU Events Center.
The victory keeps alive the Buffs’ slim but very real chance at landing the top seed at the Pac-12 Conference tournament and gave CU its third consecutive regular season sweep of the Trojans. The win also gave
CU its 12th conference win, the program’s most since joining the Pac-12 before the 2011-12 season. And though the league moved to a 20game schedule this season, the Buffs can say they hit that win total within the Pac12’s typical 18-game threshold.
With the win, combined with Stanford’s loss Thursday night against Oregon, CU can finish no lower than fourth in the league, meaning the Buffs will have a firstround bye at the Pac-12 tournament and will begin play in the quarterfinals in Las
Vegas on March 11.
“We just came out focused and wanted to make sure that we started to set the tone for this end of the season run,” Horne said. “Everybody bought in. We followed coach’s plans. And we played together. We had each other’s backs and I think it showed tonight.”
Horne couldn’t miss for much of the night, finishing 9-for-12 overall and 6-for-9 on 3-pointers while matching his season-best with 24 points. Horne also grabbed a game-best seven rebounds to post his second doubledouble of the season.
Wright was honored before the game by CU athletic director Rick George, who bestowed Wright with a basketball commemorating Wright becoming the first Pac-12 player to record at least 1,600 points, 600 rebounds, and 600 assists in his career. Fittingly, he turned in another milestone effort, finishing with 15 points and a career-high 14 assists for his third doubledouble of the season.
For Wright, it was the ninth double-digit assist game of his career, breaking a tie with Jay Humphries for the most in program history.