The Washington Wizards held off a late surge Tuesday night to defeat the Orlando Magic, 120-112.<\/p>\n
Bilal Coulibaly opened the game with a steal and a slam for two of his seven first-quarter points. The 21-year-old wing drew the Paolo Banchero assignment and guarded him quite well.<\/p>\n
Tre Johnson\u2019s streaky jump shot had made headlines in recent days, but it was his playmaking that shined in the opening frame. Johnson found Alex Sarr with a pair of dimes \u2014 one for a dunk and another for an open 3-pointer \u2014 en route to a 7-0 Wizards run.<\/p>\n
Sarr finished with nine points in the quarter as the Wizards took a 30-29 advantage into the second frame. Also spotted during the first quarter of Tuesday\u2019s game: A Trae Young jersey behind the Wizards\u2019 bench.<\/p>\n
Justin Champagnie continued to make winning plays in the second quarter. After drilling a pair of triples, the 24-year-old wing grabbed an offensive rebound, put it back up for an easy bucket, then stripped Wendell Carter Jr. before finding Marvin Bagley III for a transition layup to give the Wizards a 40-33 lead.<\/p>\n
Sarr re-entered for Bagley and quickly drilled his second triple of the contest before adding four more points to close the half with 16 points and 6 rebounds. Washington entered halftime with a 62-50 advantage thanks to 11 Magic turnovers.<\/p>\n
It was a defensive masterclass in the third quarter for the Wizards, led by Bilal Coulibaly\u2019s four steals halfway through the frame. The Wizards scored 14 points off several Magic turnovers to grow a 26-point lead with four minutes left in the quarter.<\/p>\n
But the Magic kept fighting. And with 5:43 remaining in the fourth quarter, Washington\u2019s 26-point lead was down to just four. Brian Keefe left the bench in for a bit too long, and Orlando took advantage to tighten the contest late.<\/p>\n
With the Magic closing in, Sarr took over down low. The second-year big man earned three of game-high four blocks in the span of three possessions before CJ McCollum drilled a corner three to extend Washington\u2019s lead to nine.<\/p>\n
Coulibaly, who finished with 14 points and five steals, grabbed a pair of clutch rebounds as the Wizards closed out their fifth win in seven games.<\/p>\n
It took Washington 57 games to reach 10 wins last season. This year: Just 35 after a 120-112 victory over the magic improved the team\u2019s record to 10-25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Washington Wizards held off a late surge Tuesday night to defeat the Orlando Magic, 120-112. Bilal Coulibaly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3780],"tags":[7,6,682,468,14947,3892,683],"class_list":{"0":"post-521875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-wizards","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-washington","11":"tag-washington-wizards","12":"tag-washington-wizards-recaps","13":"tag-washingtonwizards","14":"tag-wizards"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115852247427790194","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}