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Tim BontempsESPN
Bradley Beal could have hit a new high with 60 points Wednesday night against the Philadelphia 76ers, but that did nothing to improve his mood after Washington’s 141-136 loss to Wells Fargo Center. Philadelphia.
“I’m angry,” Beal said. “I’m crazy. I don’t count [them]. … Any of my career highs, has been at a loss. So I don’t care about anything. You can throw it straight out the window with the other two or three I’ve had.
“I just want to win. Sometimes it’s possible you can score 40, 50, 60, whatever the case, but I just want to win, whatever it looks like. Today we fell a little short tonight.”
Beal was on fire for the first three quarters, adding 57 points in the first 36 minutes of the match. But after Washington won a 10-point deficit to start the fourth quarter with Beal on the bench, he returned with the Wizards tied at 119 with 7:50 of play.
From then on, however, Beal made a single throw and then split a couple of senseless free throws within the last 10 seconds with the game far out of reach, as Philadelphia fired a 61. , 7 percent from the field and was 18-29 (62.1 percent) from the 3-point range: he hit enough shots to end a high-scoring slugfest.
“I think they got stops and made more plays than we did along the stretch,” Beal said, when asked what the late difference was. “I think Embiid hit a hard 3 … they were making a lot of shots. He hit a lot of hard shots.
“They shot 60 percent from the field and 62 percent from 3. You can’t win a game like that.”
For Beal, the afternoon before the party was consumed by events in Washington, DC, where angry supporters of President Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Beal has been at his home in Washington, DC, for the past eight more years since the Wizards got him third in the 2012 NBA Draft overall. He said it was hard to see what was going on and not think about how it would have been things if the people who stormed the Capitol had been black.
Sixers coach Doc Rivers and Atlanta Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce echoed the sentiment earlier Wednesday.
“It’s very emotional,” Beal said. “It’s very discouraging in many ways, because only the lack of sense of urgency was there to respond to what was going on against the protesters and Black Lives Matter over the summer. It was a live highlight from around the world. Everyone went the same number “.
Earlier Wednesday, Beal retweeted a message from President Trump since the summer, when Trump said anyone who violated federal property during the Black Lives Matter protests in Portland would face up to ten years in prison.
“So we’ll see if he has his foot in his mouth or that’s something he really defends,” Beal said. “Because of the people invading our Capitol … they invaded the Capitol. It’s unheard of.
“It’s discouraging. This is where we are with the country.”
Beal, who added that he was frustrated by the decision not to charge officers involved in the Kenosha, Wisconsin shooting last summer, said it would take patience to embrace the change he and so many other members of the ‘NBA have spent so much time already fighting.
“We keep fighting for the good fight,” Beal said. “We continue to face these legislators and politicians and continue to put the hammer on the changes that are being made, but the most important thing is the word patience. The changes will not be made overnight. We need to understand what it looks like. and what that means.
“Patience will be required.”
The Sixers, meanwhile, improved to the best 7-1 in the league thanks to another stellar performance from Embiid, who finished with 38 points in the 11-20 throw – and after missing his first six shots – to add eight rebounds. , five assists, three steals and three blocks in 37 minutes.
And, typically, Embiid wasn’t exactly shy in crediting himself for dragging the Sixers to victory with one big play after another.
“They pay me to take over the game,” Embiid said. “They pay me to dominate. That’s my job.
“I always give credit to my teammates. [But] I am done.”
Meanwhile, Embiid’s former enemy, Russell Westbrook, left the game at the last minute and went straight to the locker room holding his right hand. After the match, Westbrook said he had dislocated his finger and did not know if he would demand that he miss any time.
“That’s — bad,” said Westbrook, who finished with 20 points, eight rebounds and 12 assists in 39 minutes. “But I’ll be fine.”