A valiant effort that fell…
wait, WHAT?!
The Brooklyn Nets gave the Houston Rockets all they could handle last night and were about to lose until D’Angelo Russell pulled a rabbit out of his hat.
Final score: Nets 99, Rockets 97. Well I’ll be dipped.
The opponent tonight is still trying to figure themselves out. The Washington Wizards find themselves at the bottom of the NBA standings as they search for lottery luck this spring. They beat the Charlotte Hornets on Monday night to push their current win streak to two.
Where to follow the game
YES Network on TV. WFAN on radio. Tip after 7:30 PM.
Injuries
Saadiq Bey, Alex Sarr, and Marvin Bagley III are out for Washington since we wrote this, both Kyle Kuzma and Jonas Valančiūnas have been traded!
Night two of a back-to-back so we’ll see who else is out tonight. Ben Simmons is expected back at least. The usual suspects are still out: Cam Thomas, Cam Johnson,Noah Clowney, Bojan Bogdanovic, De’Anthony Melton and Maxwell Lewis. Day’Ron Sharpe is listed as questionable with left hamstring tightness.
The game
Amazingly, this is the first meeting of the season between the two teams.
After a game like last night, the Nets are riding pretty high. The winning streak is at three and as we are a little over 24 hours away from the trading deadline, teams will be making last ditch efforts to map out the rest of the season. It doesn’t appear that much is cooking on the Nets front, but stranger things have happened. Stay tuned.
Whoever wins the rebound matchup will be doing themselves a favor. Both clubs are bottom five in rebounding rate and whoever is able to secure those extra possessions and control the pace will have the advantage.
Even amidst all the losing, you can start to see some glimmers of hope for the Wizards. Bilal Coulibaly has been a revelation this year and was rewarded with an invitation to the Rising Stars Challenge during All Star weekend.
Player to watch: Kyle Kuzma (until he got traded)
It feels like every year, there’s a team out there that wants to trade for Kuzma. In theory, he provides size, good rebounding, and some floor spacing at the four. The results haven’t matched the theory yet, but there’s always a believer out there. This time, it might be the Milwaukee Bucks. They are rumored to be interested in acquiring the Wizards star as they try to fortify their roster for a deep playoff push. Will Kuz be the guy to get them back to the Conference Finals? We’ll see.
and just like that…
And if you thought our next choice for player to watch would be Jonas Valančiūnas, well there’s this…
So we’re going with Malcolm Brogdon unless of course he gets traded before game time.
Neither Khris Middleton nor Sidy Cissoko, the big returns in today’s deals, is expected to be in uniform for the Wiz tonight.
From the Vault
Ones in the air for Bayard Rustin
More reading: Bullets Forever and SB Nation NBA
