ATLANTA — Kent Bazemore scored a career-high 25 points, and the Atlanta Hawks beat the Washington Wizards, 114-99, on Saturday night for their seventh consecutive victory.
Paul Millsap had 21 points, seven rebounds and six assists for Atlanta, and Al Horford scored 14 points. Jeff Teague finished with 10 points, eight assists and five steals.
Otto Porter paced the Wizards with a career-high 23 points, but Washington committed 26 turnovers and Atlanta scored 39 points in the final quarter.
The Wizards and Hawks both played on Friday night, and each team looked tired early on. Atlanta missed its first eight shots and 13 of its first 15, but Washington only had a 6-5 lead over those opening six minutes because the Wizards turned the ball over six times in that span.
Teague, the Hawks’ leading scorer entering the game with an average of 19.1 points, was just 1-for-9 from the field in the first half and Atlanta trailed, 45-41, at the break.
Washington carried a 78-75 lead into the final period, but Atlanta closed with a 24-9 surge, taking the lead for good when rarely used Mike Muscala made a 3-pointer with 6:09 left. Muscala had played in just two previous games without scoring.
John Wall had 19 points and 12 assists for the Wizards, but his backcourt mate, Bradley Beal, was held to a season-low 11 points and committed eight turnovers.
Beal’s streak of scoring 24 or more points ended at five games. Beal and Earl Monroe in 1968 are the only players in franchise history to score at least 24 points in the season’s first give games.
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