In the Washington Wizards locker room, coach Scott Brooks stood in front of the room and recognized the players for their impact on a big win in Portland.
It started with Isaac Bonga, who played just five minutes, but was a plus-5 on the scoreboard.
“Those five minutes were huge,” Brooks said. He passed on to Rui Hachimura, calling him a “difference maker” the last two weeks, with his defensive versatility.
It took him to make a haircut, and there was a standard cheerful commotion, but then a brief pause. It was understood that someone had the floor, as he does after every game when he wants to.
“Hey, be locked into what we’re doing,” Russell Westbrook said. “Don’t get tired of doing the same s —. Don’t get tired of it, don’t get bored, don’t get tired of doing the same s —. That’s what we do.”
The game broke with the “family” in threes, and with that, the Wizards came out of the Fashion Center with a fourth straight win, beating the Portland Trail Blazers 118-111, showing signs of straightening their start to the season.
Westbrook played perhaps his best game of the season, scoring 27 efficient points, adding 11 rebounds and 13 assists for his eighth triple-double of the season. Which places him as the second all-time triple-double in the history of the Wizards franchise, already going through John Wall and Wes Unseld, and just behind Darrell Walker (15). Bradley Beal scored 37 points, Hachimura added 17, Davis Bertans hit 3s and the Wizards looked like a good team.
It’s been a hectic season for the Wizards, with league safety and health protocols disrupting them for weeks as the team dealt with a COVID-19 outbreak and contact tracking. There have been injuries, large and small. There have been grueling losses. There have been major embarrassments.
“We kept saying we need games, we need games,” Brooks said. “Well, February has given us games. That’s what we need.”
After replacing John Wall for Westbrook before the season, there was optimism that the former MVP’s leadership and intensity could transform the young wizards and elevate them to a strong Eastern Conference playoff team. And Brooks maintained for weeks, despite the frustrating lows, that the wizards were about to break up.
What was not said, however, was that the wizards needed Westbrook to rediscover his elite level in order to do so. A quad injury left him out for weeks in early January, and the games and lost practices the team faced kept the rust out of his game. Westbrook is a well-known rhythm player, who needs games to solve problems. The more you play, the sharper they get. Its handle is narrower. Its jumper is softer. Your decision making is better. Its finish is stronger.
“He has a pace. He’s going to have more games like this,” Brooks said. “The guy is a league player. How he prepares. How he talks to our guys. He forces the team to be ready.”
But at age 32, Westbrook had to take a different approach to his recovery. It was a slow process, requiring adjustment.
“To start the year, I was debating and it was a difficult place for me honestly, because I don’t like dropping classmates. I want to make sure it’s available to them, even if it’s not 100 percent,” he said. to say. “And that’s something I’ve always done. It’s probably not the best, but honestly, as I got older, I had to stop. I had to stop because I couldn’t explode and move as I needed to.”
There were times when questions were asked about him, the long-awaited ones. There were alarming signs of washing. It seemed a slower pace and the electricity didn’t turn on. The ferocity was not the same. But, Westbrook said, that was just because he was trying to play a longer game for once.
“I feel so much better now,” he continued. “I’m able to move, explode, catch people and impact the game on both sides of the ground, and as the season progresses, I’ll get better. I’m not worried about that.”
Westbrook has spent 12 seasons playing exceptionally hard, and he does so with the kind of consistency overnight that few players are equipped to handle. There are many miles on it and knee procedures to follow. His style is to dispense with personal safety within the limits of 48 minutes, without ever spending a single moment worrying about the future, instead of focusing only on the here and now. His approach is what has made him an NBA legend. But it is also what will happen fighting the twilight of his career.
After the Wizards beat the Nets a few weeks ago in the wild comeback in the final five seconds, Brooks was blunt about the different process Westbrook has gone through this season. Westbrook’s instant trampoline ability was always something Brooks – and his successor, Billy Donovan – marveled at how apparently the guard could get out of bed, grab power up to 10, and blow up the dunks. It was in the same way that he faced injury recovery, playing through almost any small footprint and taking on bigger things with a ferocity that made him return soon from knee surgeries, playing with a tooth in the face and being treated with tears of ligament in the hand. .
“He didn’t do it this time,” Brooks said a few weeks ago, after the Wizards surprised the Nets against Westbrook’s Wild 3. “Which I’m glad about, because he’s an old man now.”
What Westbrook wanted in a trade out of Houston was to go back to his way now of doing what I want, leading a team on and off the field. He wanted to bring his immense gravitational pull to a new wardrobe and for a team to take on his intense identity. He wanted to play his way and not worry about analytical equations. With the desperate need to update the culture, the magicians wanted it too.
“He’s set the tone. Our guys are a lot more ready to prepare to win a game,” Brooks said. “He’s led us in a lot of ways that I don’t even want to get into. Our players know it. Ask any player on that team. They know it means business. It’s not a hobby for him. Many times in this league, “People see it as a hobby. It’s fun. We can do anything we like. I understand. But it’s still your job, your livelihood, how you represent your organization, your city, your family.” , your coaches.And Russell does this at the highest level I’ve ever seen.
“It has given us a path to how to be a championship level [team]”Brooks added.” Our young boys need it. Sometimes they don’t understand what it costs them, but in the next few years they will realize that this is how you start your career in the right way, with good players. “
Beal is ready to start the All-Star Game and gives credit to Westbrook to help him improve. Westbrook has a long history playing alongside high-level talent and elevating them. He helped Kevin Durant win four scoring titles and an MVP. Paul George played the best season of his career with Westbrook. And alongside Beal, Westbrook recognizes his place as a complementary star, stepping aside to let his teammate cook, but also imparting his will when necessary.
“My job is to make sure I keep pushing him and getting the best out of him every night,” Westbrook said of Beal.
Westbrook has never been a model of consistency. His recklessness is part of his ability as a renegade of basketball willing to take on the burden of failure. But what you need is for the engine to run in top gear, even if the oil needs to be changed a little more often.
“I don’t see the ups and downs you’re claiming. I see his shot going up and down,” Brooks said, “but his game isn’t based on making and losing shots. It’s based on directing us.”