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Doom Pixels, Wizards vs. Timberwolves: Bradley Beal knee injury overshadows blowout loss

The Washington Wizards got blown out on the road last night in their first game in nearly a week, but nobody cares, because the basketball gods are cruel, cruel beasts.

Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sport

Man, how nice would it be to actually care about the Washington Wizards getting embarrassed 120-98 on the road against the Minnesota Timberwolves, simultaneously blowing their chance at .500 and a four-game road winning streak?

Answer: Pretty friggin' nice, considering that we are instead dreading the potential news of a devastating knee injury to Bradley Beal following an MRI scheduled for today.

Thus far, the news has been good since Beal crumpled in a heap with 4:30 to play in the game and everyone assumed the worst because a) this is the Wizards we're talking about, and b) NBA courts have basically resembled MASH units this season. Beal had an X-ray after the game that came back negative, and reports were that he left the arena without crutches after initially using them on the way to his X-ray. Beal himself also sounded rather upbeat, given the circumstances.

Of course, all of that could mean nothing. I'm (obviously) not a doctor, but my understanding is that an X-ray would only reveal bone or structural damage, not ligament or tendon tears, which are the real fear here. Players are often optimistic before receiving catastrophic injury news, and walking out of the arena without crutches isn't indicative of anything either, as small or partial tears could leave enough stability to walk, but not enough to play professional basketball, and could take nearly as much time to heal.

Some personal context: My wife played her entire high school senior softball season at catcher after tearing her ACL on a skiing trip, so I wouldn't look too much into Beal being able to walk. It's obviously better than him using crutches, and I'm actually semi-optimistic this will "only" be a bruise or strain, but still, let's wait for the MRI.

So, well then, now that I've thoroughly ruined your morning, let's get straight to today's Magical Doom Pixels:

KEY LINKS

Road team recaps: BF StoryStream | Washington Post (gamerBeal sidebar) | AP | CSN Washington (recapBeal sidebar) | Wiz of AwesWizards.comMonumental Network

Home team recaps: Canis Hoopus | Minneapolis Star Tribune (gamersidebar) | St. Paul Pioneer PressAPNBA.comSportigeFOX Sports North1500 ESPNFansided

Game highlights

Postgame interviews: Randy Wittman Bradley BealJohn WallMartell WebsterMarcin Gortat

KEY STATS

1 - Healthy knees Bradley Beal ended the T-Wolves game with.

2 - Free throws Minnesota took for every one Washington took, i.e., the T-Wolves shot twice as many free throws (38) as the Wiz (17). The discrepancy was even higher earlier in the game, before someone from the NBA no doubt called to let the refs know they were making the whole charade a bit too obvious. This is what everyone was talking about on Twitter before, well, just check out the tweets below.

TWEETS OF THE NIGHT

Not sure how you can tell there's no ligament damage from an X-ray, but whatever. I'm too depressed to argue.

VIDEO/GIF OF THE NIGHT

These are called "Doom Pixels" today for a reason. Apologies in advance.

GAMETHREAD BEALMEGEDDON COMMENT OF THE NIGHT

Not technically from the gamethread, but this came during the game in the post about Beal's injury and, I think, perfectly encapsulates how all Wizards fans were/are feeling.

GAMETHREAD COMMENT OF THE NIGHT

Just for levity's sake, here is what would have been the Comment of the Night before Beal went down.

GAMETHREAD ROLLCALL

# Commenter # Comments
1 Yeti60 56
2 DCrez 53
3 NewCavsfan 47
4 Banode 47
5 Baird15 46
6 jarem 45
7 Craig_ 36
8 richkam14 33
9 Wall_Hopeful 28
10 souldrummer 27
11 qthaballa 26
12 el freako 22
13 thewiz06 22
14 DCnhokies 20
15 BackScreenLob 14
16 Big Spoon 12
17 imperialme 12
18 John Wall Stan 11
19 DavidDunn 11
20 The Dark Side of the Sun 11
21 Moonwalk Jenkins 10
22 Big Purp 8
23 freshcat 8
24 WindyRindy 8
25 SladeKillah 7
26 LRJ 6
27 keylimekai 6
28 TerpsAllTheWay 5
29 Rook6980 4
30 ZonkerBL 4
31 WinstonCharles 3
32 Asdesas 3
33 do.itch.big 3
34 Entr0py 3
35 jayxelo 3
36 johnwallposterizes 2
37 ATrueNigerian 2
38 DeadheadSkins 1
39 knight13951 1
40 abovelegit 1
41 jontydeans 1
42 Bryan1976 1
43 HijackedD 1
44 WizforLife 1