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Tim BontempsESPN
Bradley Beal may have scored a career-high 60 points Wednesday night against the Philadelphia 76ers, but that did nothing to improve his mood after the Washington Wizards’ 141-136 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
“I’m pissed,” Beal said. ‘I am crazy. I do not count [them]. … At any of my career heights, these were losses. So I do not care much. You can throw it straight out the window with the other two or three I had.
“I just want to win. Sometimes you can score 40, 50, 60, whatever it is, but I just want to win, whatever it looks like. We fell a little short tonight.”
Beal caught fire through the first three quarters, throwing in 57 points in the first 36 minutes of the game. But after Washington made up a ten-point deficit to start the fourth quarter with Beal on the bench, he returned with the Wizards tied at 119 with 7 minutes, 50 seconds left in the game.
From then on, however, Beal made just one shot and then split a few meaningless free throws in the final 10 seconds while the game was out of reach, such as Philadelphia – which shot 61.7% from the field and 18-for -29 (62.1%) from the three-point series – hit enough shots to finally reach a high points ladder.
“I think they stopped and made more plays than we did,” Beal said when asked what the difference was. “I think [Joel] Embiid hit a tough 3 … they made a lot of shots. They struck very hard blows.
“They shot 60% off the field and 62% from 3. You can’t win a game like that.”
For Beal, the afternoon leading up to the game was devoured by the events in Washington, where a crowd of people supporting President Donald Trump stormed the US capital.
Beal has made his home in Washington for the past eight years plus since the Wizards finished third in the NBA draft in 2012. He said it was hard to see what was happening and not think about how things would have been different if the people who stormed the Capitol were black.
Six Rivers coach Doc Rivers and Atlanta Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce honored sentiment earlier Wednesday.
“It’s very emotional,” Beal said. “It’s very discouraging in many ways, because just the lack of urgency was to respond in the summer to what’s going on versus protesters and Black Lives Matter. It was a direct standout from around the world. The same issue.”
Earlier Wednesday, Beal tweeted a report from President Trump again from the summer, when Trump said that anyone violating federal property during Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, Oregon, would receive 10 years in prison.
“So we’ll see if he has his foot in his mouth, or if that’s what he really stands for,” Beal said. “Because of the people who invaded our Capitol … they invaded the Capitol. It’s unheard of.
“It’s discouraging, it’s where we are with the country.”
Beal, who added that he was frustrated by the decision not to charge the officers of the Jacob Blake shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last summer, said patience would be needed to change what he and so many others spent in the NBA community, setting up so much time to fight.
“We continue to fight the good fight,” Beal said. “We continue to prevent these legislators and politicians and we continue to lay the hammer on changes that are being made, but the biggest thing is the P-word – patience. Changes will not happen overnight. We have to understand what it looks like and what it means.
“Patience is going to be needed.”
The Sixers meanwhile improved to a league-best 7-1 thanks to another stunning display from Embiid, who finished with 38 points on 11-to-20 shots – after missing his first six shots – to team up with 8 rebounds to go. , 5 assistants, 3 steals and 3 blocks in 37 minutes.
And in a typical way, Embiid was not exactly ashamed to admit to himself that he dragged the Sixers to victory with one big game after another.
“They pay me to take over the game,” Embiid said. “They pay me to dominate. This is my job.
“I always give honor to my teammates. [But] I’m done. “
Meanwhile, Embiid’s longtime nemesis, Russell Westbrook, left the game within the last minute and went straight to the locker room while grabbing his right hand. After the game, Westbrook said he had dislocated a finger and that he was not sure if it was necessary to miss any time.
“It hurts so much,” said Westbrook, who finished with 39 points, 8 rebounds and 12 assists in 39 minutes. “But I’m fine.”