Missed out on this past week’s Washington Wizards coverage? We ‘ve got you covered with the Wizards Weekly Recap.
This is a segment I started last week where I will be going over some storylines/headlines about the Wizards from the previous week.
How they fared this past week:
Defeated the San Antonio Spurs 138-132
Defeated the Charlotte Hornets 125-118
Lost to the Sacramento Kings 113-106
Upcoming Wizards match ups:
Tuesday, Nov 25 at Denver Nuggets
Wednesday, November 27 at Phoenix Suns
Friday, November 29 at Los Angeles Lakers
Sunday, December 1 at LA Clippers
Davis Bertans emerging as a legitimate scoring threat
Washinton Wizards GM Tommy Shepard made a shrewd move over the off-season that went under the radar. He traded for Davis Bertans.
Davis Bertans was known for being a sharpshooter. By percentage, Bertans was the NBA’s sixth-best three-point shooter last season. In his final season in San Antonio, he shot 42.9 percent from behind the arc and averaged 8.0 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 1.3 assists a game.
But now with Washington, Bertans has elevated his game. He is averaging 27.1 minutes,13 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 1.9 assists per game while shooting 44.3 percent from deep. All improvements over last season.
He is having career highs in points, rebounds, assists, steals, three-point percentage, field goal percentage, and free throw percentage. This is all while coming off the bench, too.
Bertans showed in the loss to the Kings how deadly he can be on catch and shoot threes. Check out this quick release from late in the fourth.
B3RTANS!!! pic.twitter.com/wLjSk2CDxc
— Washington Wizards (@WashWizards) November 25, 2019
In his last four games, Bertans is averaging 17 points and 4.75 threes. He also dropped 21 points in a revenge game against the San Antonio Spurs. In the past, the Wizards have had to rely on the starting lineup due to the lack of scoring from the bench. Now, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Bertans’ presence on the court allows the team to stretch the floor. When someone drives to the hoop, the defense has to decide if they want to slide over to help, and in doing so will leave Bertans open. He is a key reason the Wizards have one of the best offenses in the league.
Bertans is in a contract year and Washington should start thinking about a deal now before he plays himself out of the city.
The Wizards aren’t backing down
In two of the Wizards’ past three games, the team was trailing in the fourth quarter. In the win over the Spurs, Washington trailed in the third quarter before taking the lead for good.
Against the Hornets, the Wizards trailed 107-94 with 9:25 left in the game. Down against an Eastern Conference foe, Bradley Beal and the Wizards stepped up. Including Beal, six different players scored for the Wizards in the game’s final nine minutes. Not wanting to leave the heavy lifting to one player, the team stepped up and carried one another. Everybody eats, and the Wizards won back to back games for the first time this season.
Despite losing, Washington fought until the very end against the Kings. They cut the lead to two before some questionable foul calls against the Wizards put the game out of reach.
Even in losses, this Wizards team battles. That is what you want to see from such a young team, and it will only drive them moving forward.