Bradley Beal explains how he stopped Kevin Martin's final shot

WASHINGTON -- More to come in the morning, but I wanted to quickly post Bradley Beal's answer to my question about his strategy defending Kevin Martin on Minnesota's final chance to take the lead with 23 seconds to go, because I thought it was interesting. Martin tried backing Beal in, but missed a fadeaway with Beal's hands in his face.

"I was baiting him, because he got me in the first half on a shot fake. He always turns over his right shoulder, and I remembered that this was the exact same play [as the first half]," Beal said. "I was going to bait him, force him to go middle, so to speak, then cut him off and cut his shoulder off [turning back to the baseline]. Eventually, I was able to get a little piece of the ball. I think I did a pretty good job of keeping my hands to myself and not fouling as much as possible."

Here's video of the defensive play.

I can't tell which play Beal is referring to in his comments, but it's nice to see a player take an adjustment and use it. Beal got beat backdoor twice in the opening minutes, but helped hold Martin to a 2-15 performance after that. Big-time defense from him.

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