John Wall, Bradley Beal miss two game-winning chances, Wizards fall in 0-2 hole

BOSTON — This was the one that got away, one that rested in the palm then slipped out through the cracks of a closing fist.

Game 2 will be lamented by Washington as a chance gone. Its two best players, tugged by tired legs, sore hands and wanting bodies from being smacked throughout the brutish night, each had an opportunity at the end. John Wall missed an 18-foot jump shot. An offensive rebound led to Bradley Beal’s chance. He missed his possible game-winner from 15 feet, an air ball at the buzzer to add to the indignity of a 4-for-15 night, the worst postseason performance of his career.

An opportunity to steal homecourt and square the series evaporated with those shots. In front of the Wizards after a 129-119 overtime loss to Boston is an 0-2 hole that will be lamented on the flight and addressed in Game 3 at home on Thursday night.

“We’re not playing tough enough,” Markieff Morris said. “We had the advantage late in the game and all we had to do was play tough. We didn’t have to make shots, we didn’t have to get stops, all we had to do is play tough.

“We let them get offensive rebounds late in the game. Guys just walking to the basket and we’re just worried about our own personal [expletive] when it’s about the team. At the end of the day, it’s about winning and we didn’t care too much about that tonight. We let them back in the game and we got to regroup and get the next one.”

Otto Porter conducted his postgame interview with a chunk of white gauze hanging out the bottom of his left nostril. His nose was previously bloodied, but not broke, as far as he knows. Marcin Gortat groaned as he pulled clothing on. In the locker room, Morris put his sprained left ankle in a bucket of ice that ran up to his shin. He and Jason Smith used stationary bikes throughout the game to keep blood churning through their aches. Since Morris sprained his ankle in the second quarter of Game 1, he insisted he would play Tuesday. He started, grappled with Al Horford and foul trouble, then finished with 16 points and six rebounds.

Wall landed hard after flipping through the air in the second quarter. He shook his left wrist and alarms were sounded. The play was similar to when Wall suffered five non-displaced fractures in his left hand during the 2015 Eastern Conference semifinals against Atlanta. Instead of leaving the floor Tuesday, he drove to the basket on the next possession, again being dumped to the ground. He kept coming in a night full of hands-on play, scoring 40 points and adding 13 assists. He was dominant, but one make short of giddiness.

“We had opportunities to win this game,” Wall said. “… I got a great look at the end. Brad got an opportunity to get a great look.”

Washington started overtime deflated and in foul trouble. Its best players had missed two shots to earn a split in Boston, a shift that would have flipped the series on its head. Instead, Beal and Wall had both already played more than 42 minutes apiece. Morris, Gortat and Kelly Oubre each had five fouls. Morris and Gortat would not last beyond the first two minutes of overtime. An opening 3-pointer by Oubre was gave the Wizards a 3-point lead. From there, they were disassembled — tired, beaten, out of internal and external energy. Boston outscored Washington 15-5 in the five extra minutes.

“They just had so much more energy and momentum,” Wall said.

Again, Washington can look back at an early double-digit lead that eventually became another loss. At the end of the first quarter, the Wizards led by 13 points. In Game 1, Washington held an early 17-point lead. Those both progressively fizzled.

Tuesday, there was a reboot of the advantage in the third quarter. Washington led by 14 with 7:57 to play in the third. That lead went away. In the fourth, the Wizards led by seven with 10:22 to play. That lead went away. Washington led by six with 2:43 to play and that lead went away when Isaiah Thomas and Terry Rozier hit back-to-back 3-pointers. A 4-4 exchange followed before Wall and Beal missed.

“We gave up two mistake threes at the end of regulation,” Wizards coach Scott Brooks said.

A word about Thomas: On what was supposed to be his sister’s 23rd birthday, but wasn’t because she died in a car accident just before the postseason began, Thomas scored 53 points. He scored 29 of those in the fourth quarter and overtime. The left-handed jitterbug could not be slowed at the start, when he was in foul trouble, or when things were most crucial. He has delivered 86 points in two games. The Wizards cannot figure him out.

They are also having a difficult time handling the defense of Marcus Smart, Jae Crowder and Avery Bradley, three of the league’s best defenders. The trio is stout and physical. Throughout the night, they grabbed Beal and converged on Wall whenever possible. Beal did not speak with reporters after the game, but he did have an extended conversation with his agent, Mark Bartelstein, just around the corner from the Wizards’ locker room after he walked out. The first question for the rarely-terse Brooks was about the referees. “Nice try, next question,” Brooks shot back.

When asked about Beal’s ineffective performance, Brooks gave a hint of what he thought about the officiating.

“We have to do a better job of getting their hands off him, one,” Brooks said. “If they’re going to allow him to be guarded that way, we’re going to have to make some adjustments ourselves.”

Game 3 is Thursday. Ice baths and beds will be embraced during the two days before Game 4 on Sunday. The Wizards used the standard suggestion that top-seeded Boston merely held homecourt, as the favored seed is supposed to do. They know it was more than that. Tuesday was a massive chance to shift pressure, shift outlooks, alter the entire flow of the series. Instead, their hole just became larger.