John Wall’s return to his college home was upstaged by DeMarcus Cousins’ return to Kentucky as the Kings beat the Wizards 124-119. Cousins had 22 points 6 assists, and 5 rebounds in 26 minutes of action.
Wall had a solid outing in limited minutes, racking up 11 points, 4 assists, and 4 steals in 22 minutes, but didn’t get much support from the rest of the team’s rotation. Bradley Beal, Otto Porter, and Jason Smith were held out of the game, Ian Mahinmi missed the game after undergoing surgery on Friday, and Marcin Gortat only played 9 minutes in the exhibition.
With most of the main cogs out, other players got a chance to shine. Andrew Nicholson had 19 points and 5 rebounds and Trey Burke posted 14 points and 10 assists.
The Wizards are now 2-3 in preseason action and they’re winless against teams based outside of Philadelphia.
Here’s what else we noticed tonight:
Kelly Oubre gets his chance with the starters (kinda)
The Wizards’ second-year man got a chance to start for the first time during the preseason. He held his own on the stat sheet, finishing with 15 points and a pair of steals.
But does tonight really mean anything in the Porter-Oubre debate? It’s hard to say. With so many players out or limited, it’s hard to say much other than Oubre still has decent chemistry with Wall.
For whatever it’s worth, the defense continues to struggle
It probably doesn’t mean anything, but giving up 124 points to the Kings in any situation isn’t a great look. Like other teams this season, the Kings feasted from outside, shooting 9-19 from deep. But they shot well from everywhere, shooting 60 percent from the field and 31-38 at the free throw line. Let’s hope the team is just working out the bugs as they adjust to a new system, or the team just isn’t showing off their real defensive game plan at this point.