At least Bradley Beal got to have one more chance this season to display that textbook form — feet squared perfectly, elbow bent at a 90-degree angle, wrist flicking for the follow-through — on Sunday while matching his career high with six three-pointers and scoring 24 points to lead the Washington Wizards to a victory over the Toronto Raptors.
Beal felt good about coming back after missing the previous five games with a sprained left ankle but was more excited about what he could help the team accomplish the rest of the season. As for his individual goal?
“I just want to be healthy overall,” Beal said.
Unfortunately for Beal, the promising rookie shooting guard couldn’t even survive another full game. After experiencing some discomfort in his ankle and having another hard fall in the Wizards’ win on Tuesday over Chicago, Beal had an MRI exam that revealed a season-ending stress injury in his right fibula. Surgery isn’t required, but the team announced in a statement that he would be able to return to basketball-related activities in approximately six weeks.
“I thought he had a really solid rookie year,” Coach Randy Wittman said. “I thought from Day 1, learning what this league is about, learning what these players are about, learning the speed of the game from Day 1 to where we are today. He made improvements and there was steady growth. For a young kid like that in this league, sometimes you don’t know. Sometimes, it takes a while to learn what you’re capable of doing in this league and Bradley had great strides in his growth and learning how to play. That was the thing that I was most pleased with.”
In Beal’s absence, the Wizards (28-47) were officially eliminated from playoff contention after an 88-78 loss to the Raptors on Wednesday night. John Wall scored a team-high 20 points but he missed 12 of his 17 field goal attempts as the Wizards were held to just 28 points in the second half. They are now 7-30 on the road this season.
Garrett Temple, starting his 15th straight game at shooting guard, was held scoreless. Temple, Martell Webster, Trevor Ariza, A.J. Price and Cartier Martin, the Wizards’ primary perimeter scoring options with Beal sidelined, combined to score 23 points on 7 for 29 shooting. Emeka Okafor had 17 points.
The third overall pick in the 2012 NBA draft, Beal averaged 13.9 points, 3.8 assists and 2.4 rebounds while shooting 38.6 percent from three-point range in 56 games, including 46 starts. He ranks third among all rookies in scoring and three-point percentage and second in minutes per game, was named Eastern Conference rookie of the month for December and January and set the Wizards’ rookie franchise record for three-pointers with 91.
“He had a great rookie season in my opinion, because he really started to figure it out, right before I came back and that was good because his confidence was pretty high,” said Wall, who missed the first 33 games with a stress injury in his left knee. “He was playing great. He matured throughout the season and I know it’s tough having to sit out when you want to finish strong with the team, but we don’t want any injury that can hurt our career down the road. That’s something you have to be very serious about after seeing the injury that happened” to Louisville guard Kevin Ware, whose leg snapped in two during the NCAA tournament.
