Washington had no answer for Zach LaVine who torched the Wizards with a game-high 30 points as Chicago knocked off Washington, 115-106. Former Wizard Tomas Satoransky added 18 points to go along with 5 assists on a night where Chicago improved to 2-0 against Washington this season.

Bradley Beal was questionable entering tonight’s game with a sore shoulder but you couldn’t tell by the way he started this one. Beal was in attack mode early on as he did most of his damage in the painted area to start the game. Brad then drilled two three-pointers, which was a breath of fresh air after going 0-7 from three-point range against the Utah Jazz on Sunday afternoon.

Beal found a cutting Gary Payton II baseline for a reverse layup as time expired in the first half as Washington enjoyed a 60-55 lead and looked to have the momentum at their back.

Washington’s lead was short lived in the third quarter as Zach LaVine caught fire from three, knocking down three deep balls in the period as Chicago regained control of this one.

The Wizards had one last ditch effort in them in the fourth quarter where they regained the lead for a moment, 91-87. But ultimately, lost the lead and lost the game because they just couldn’t put together a solid stretch of basketball for more than just a few minutes at a time tonight.

Takeaways

Washington’s comeback attempt falls short

The Wizards trailed 85-80 after three quarters and it felt like Chicago had all of the momentum. To make things worse, to that point, Washington wasn’t getting the typical production from the reserves that we’ve become accustomed to. That is, until Davis Bertans caught fire.

Bertans started the game just 1-5 from three-point range and 1-9 overall but the Latvian Laser kept chucking. Bertans nailed a catch-and-shoot three-pointer to start the quarter to break out of his funk. Next time down the court, Bertans nailed another catch-and-shoot three to trim the Bulls’ lead to one. The third time down the floor? You guessed it. Ish Smith found Bertans in transition for his third three-pointer in the first 90 seconds of the quarter to give Washington a 91-87 lead forcing the Bulls to burn a timeout.

The Wizards comeback attempt would come to a screeching halt as the Bulls countered with a 19-4 run of their own to take a 106-95 lead and they wouldn’t look back.

Washington doesn’t get its typical production from the reserves

This is one of those games where the box score doesn’t tell the whole story. Yes, Washington’s reserves combined for 48 points tonight but it doesn’t paint the whole picture.

In the first half, it was Jordan McRae who shouldered the load for the reserves with 10 points on 4-9 shooting. However, the rest of the guys were a step slow and couldn’t get anything going on the offensive end as all reserves not named McRae combined for just five points on 2-7 shooting.

In the second half, it was more of the same however this time, it was Davis Bertans’ turn to catch fire. Bertans scored nine of his 12 points in the first minute and a half of the fourth quarter but outside of that stretch, didn’t shoot the ball well.

Isaac Bonga had a nice stretch where he knocked down a three-pointer in transition only to follow that up with a thunderous jam but outside of that, was a non-factor for most of the night.

After a couple of nice performances, Troy Brown Jr. was in for a rude awakening tonight as he was held scoreless in 17 minutes of play.

Up Next: Washington heads north of the border to take on the Toronto Raptors on Friday.