Bradley Beal on Thursday scored 43 points and Russell Westbrook produced a 35-point triple-double as the Washington Wizards knocked off the NBA-leading Utah Jazz 131-122.
The Wizards snapped a five-game skid with a convincing performance against the Jazz, who endured their sixth defeat in 11 games and saw their lead at the top of the Western Conference dwindle to 1.5 games over the Los Angeles Lakers.
Reigning champions the Lakers overtook the Phoenix Suns for second in the West with a 116-105 victory over the Charlotte Hornets, while the Suns fell 123-119 to a Minnesota Timberwolves team led by a sparkling 42-point performance from rookie Anthony Edwards.
Photo: AP
Edwards, at 19 years, 225 days, became the third-youngest player in NBA history to score 40 points — behind LeBron James and Kevin Durant.
Edwards, the top overall pick in last year’s NBA draft, has averaged 30.6 points over his past five games. On Thursday he connected on 15 of 31 shots from the field and made eight of 13 free throws.
Karl-Anthony Towns added 41 points for the last-placed Timberwolves, who rallied from a 15-point third-quarter deficit.
The Lakers notched their fourth straight victory on the back of James’ 37 points, eight rebounds and six assists.
Dennis Schroder had 22 points and seven assists for the Lakers, who were again without injured star Anthony Davis.
James made eight of nine shots from the field in the first half for 22 points as the Lakers took a 15-point lead into the break.
Charlotte, led by 26 points from rookie LaMelo Ball, tied it up at 64-64 in the third quarter before the Lakers inexorably pulled away again.
James said the Lakers’ surge since the All-Star break should not be surprising, despite their sometime struggles in the first half of the season.
“I know how well we can play,” he said. “Obviously, we took some bumps before the All-Star break, we had a lot of injuries, had some things to deal with because of COVID protocols, but I know what we’re capable of.”
Meanwhile, the Jazz, who won 11 straight in January and nine in a row last month, are trending in the opposite direction.
They fell into an early 24-point hole in Washington and even a 42-point performance from Donovan Mitchell was not enough to help them dig out.
Australian guard Joe Ingles scored 34 points and Rudy Gobert added 10 with 13 rebounds for Utah, but said the Jazz cannot afford to rest on their early-season exploits.
“We get upset when people laugh at us on TV and disrespect us,” Gobert said. “It’s on us to have respect for ourselves and understand that we’re the challengers, we’re not the champions, we’re not a team that can just cruise and then turn it on when it’s playoff time. We need to understand that we’ve got to stay hungry.”
Beal said that the Wizards, coming off a narrow loss to the Sacramento Kings, knew the Jazz would be a tough follow-up.
“We didn’t have a choice but to guard or we were going to go down by 30,” said Beal, who saw his streak of 11 straight 40-point games in which his team had lost finally come to an end. “It was imperative that we left last night where it was and we came back with a different mindset that we were going to guard, and we did it for 48 minutes.”
Westbrook came out with a sense of urgency, scoring 13 of his 35 points in the first quarter, and finishing with 15 rebounds and 13 assists.
In New York, Julius Randle’s third triple-double of the season fueled the Knicks in a 94-93 victory over the Orlando Magic at Madison Square Garden.
In Atlanta, Georgia, Trae Young and Bogdan Bogdanovic scored 23 points apiece to power the Hawks to a seventh straight victory, 116-93 over the Oklahoma City Thunder.
In Portland, Oregon, the Trail Blazers sank the New Orleans Pelicans 101-93.
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