Wizards start slow, fall short in frustrating 118-110 loss to Hawks

Marred by inconsistency, the Washington Wizards dropped another game against a lesser opponent in Tuesday’s loss to the Atlanta Hawks

The Washington Wizards (12-19) came into State Farm Arena on Tuesday riding high after an impressive big win over the Los Angeles Lakers two days earlier, but the Atlanta Hawks (7-23) quickly squashed that.

The Hawks gave the Wizards a taste of their own medicine from Sunday: As the Wizards did on to the Lakers in Washington, the Hawks came out to a big lead in the first few minutes. Washington missed its first 7 field-goal attempts and didn’t score until 7:26 left in the first quarter and already down 12-0. Although the Wizards were able to catch up at various points and make it competitive, including tying the game going into the fourth quarter, the initial deficit always felt too big to ultimately overcome.

The Wizards did have a couple of strong showings. Bradley Beal extended his streaking of scoring at least 20 points to now nine consecutive games with 29 points to go with 10 rebounds. Meanwhile, Trevor Ariza did exactly what he was brought in to do in his second Wizards debut by knocking down shots, defending solidly, and filling the stat sheet. He finished with 19 points (including 4 three-pointers), 8 rebounds, 4 assists, and 6 steals.

John Wall failed to follow up on his 40-point, 14-assist performance against the Lakers with just 15 points and 6 assists in Atlanta. He seemed sluggish in the first half, in which he scored zero points. He was also limited by foul trouble, picking up his third and fourth fouls in the second and third quarters, respectively.

Wall wasn’t alone in an contest that was called extremely tightly. By the end of the third quarter, Wall and three other Wizards (Tomas Satoransky, Markieff Morris, and Ian Mahinmi) all had at least four fouls. The refs called a total of 61 combined fouls on both teams (32 on the Wizards, 29 on the Hawks), resulting in 75 total free-throw attempts.

The Hawks were led by their young build blocks. Sophomore stud John Collins put up 20 points and 13 rebounds while rookie Trae Young had 19 points of his own. The Hawks also got great contributions from their bench, including 16 points from Jeremy Lin and 15 points from Alex Len.

The Wizards have now dropped five of their last six games, and fall to a horrid 4-13 on the road. The loss also drops them even further behind the Brooklyn Nets in the standings, who pulled out an impressive win over the Lakers on Tuesday night. The Wizards remain 11th in the Eastern Conference and are now three games outside of the playoffs.

The Wizards will stay on the road for Wednesday night’s game against the Houston Rockets (15-14), winners of four straight games.

Quick notes

• Who was the only Wizards to finish with a positive plus-minus? None other than Chasson Randle, who was only signed on Tuesday. The reserve guard, who finished with a +3, played 16 minutes with Wall and Satoranksy in foul trouble, totaling 7 points and 3 assists.
• Sam Dekker‘s 20-point game against the Lakers led many to think he may be more of a contributor than most thought when he was acquired a couple weeks ago. On Tuesday, he came back to earth, playing just 13 minutes and scoring 4 points.
• The Wizards’ rebounding woes continued as the Hawks had 49 to Washington’s 37.