ATLANTA | A swath of skin underneath Bradley Beal’s right eye glistened after the game. A purple mark was covered over by clear gel that sparkled in the light, making Beal look like he had just stepped out of his corner for the 10th round.
Never mind the eye. Beal’s ankle, which he ferociously twisted in the fourth quarter, was the main line of questioning. He sat next to John Wall, whose left wrist was wrapped in black tape that wound up the back of his hand. The Washington Wizards’ young backcourt was battered, but satisfaction from a Game 1 win should be a salve for the bruises and aches.
“If it’s not broke, we’re going to compete,” Wall said.
The Wizards left Philips Arena sore yet pleased on Sunday afternoon. They had flipped Game 1 on its head to find a way to a 104-98 win in the opener of their Eastern Conference semifinal series against the top-seeded Atlanta Hawks. They have won five consecutive games to open the playoffs, appearing more dangerous as each passes. Winning on the road now has all the shock value of the sun coming up. Washington is 8-1 the last two postseasons away from home.
Atlanta finished its first-round series against the Brooklyn Nets late Friday night in New York. Its turnaround time before Sunday’s 1 p.m. tipoff was brief. The Wizards had been lounging for a full week between games, and the Hawks’ 37-point first quarter and 11-point lead delivered a reminder. Atlanta won 60 games during the regular season with ball and player movement. There was no engine, just multiple oars in sync. That approach put four Atlanta players into the All-Star Game. It also allowed DeMarre Carroll to finish the opening quarter Sunday with 13 points, more than he averaged per game during the season. This can be a lethal team.
Progressively, the Wizards played better. Atlanta shot 63.6 percent in the first quarter, then just 41.7 percent in the second during which the Wizards snipped a point off the lead. By the end of the third quarter, when the Hawks shot 33.3 percent, the Wizards had knocked another eight points from their deficit.
Down just three entering the fourth quarter, it appeared the Wizards’ early-game rust was replaced by the Hawks’ fatigue. Atlanta missed several shots near the rim. The Wizards remained steady. The league’s second-best 3-point shooting team made just one of 10 shots from behind the 3-point line in the fourth quarter. The Wizards stayed steady. Everything accumulated by Atlanta in an adrenaline-filled first quarter evaporated by the fourth. It shot 17.9 percent in the final 12 minutes, falling behind by as many seven points and not recovering the lead after Beal’s jump shot yanked Washington in front with 10:10 to play.
“We kept talking about it’s a long game,” Wizards coach Randy Wittman said. “We still got to continue to fight, fly around. The second half we got better and better and better from a defensive standpoint.”
Washington again used a variation of its small lineup with Paul Pierce playing a large chunk of time at power forward and Otto Porter playing small forward. Porter and Drew Gooden came off the bench to continue their postseason firestarting, replicating their key efforts from a first-round sweep of the Toronto Raptors. Combined, they went on an 8-0 run after entering the game in the first quarter. Porter finished with 10 points and a career-high 11 rebounds, producing his first career double-double. Gooden added 12 points, five rebounds and his typical postgame quips.
“We had to knock some rust off,” Gooden said. “It’s like knowing your fighter. You don’t know the flow of the fight the first couple rounds, so, it was something we had to make some adjustments.”
Beal’s start was synced with the team’s. He was lousy. After saying during the break he would have preferred to keep playing, he air-balled wide open shots. Eventually, like his teammates, he found solutions on the way to a game-high 28 points. Carroll, like his teammates, was stalled in the second half. After setting a personal record for 3-pointers made in the postseason before the first half was over, Carroll scored just three points in the second half to finish with 24.
One prevailing note about how much the scoring flipped: Atlanta scored 37 points in the first quarter. It scored 35 in the second half.
“Defensively, we just had a couple of lags and lulls that allowed them to get back in it and get a little separation,” Atlanta coach Mike Budenholzer said. “Offensively, we have to be more aggressive.”
Beal labeled the sprained right ankle the “worst” he’s had. Treatment began after the game and will continue overnight. He left the arena with a small limp and will be re-evaluated Monday. Wall said his wrist will be fine.
Pierce finished with 19 points after scoring the first seven of the game for the Wizards. He has not whipped Atlanta into a tizzy the way he did Toronto. Still, his sage thoughts were pursued after the Wizards took a 1-0 lead in an Eastern Conference semifinal series for the second consecutive season by again winning on the road. The 37-year-old said he gained no new knowledge about his team.
“Learned nothing,” Pierce said. “I learned nothing today. Everything that happened today and stuff I already knew about us. I knew we were a resilient team. I knew we played with a lot of grit, I knew we had heart. That’s just us. That’s our identity.”
All they need now is a good corner man.
• Todd Dybas can be reached at tdybas@washingtontimes.com.
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