The Wizards split the season series with the Sacramento Kings, winning this one in front of the home crowd.
Wizards were a little short handed tonight with no Tre Johnson and no Alex Sarr, but did have
the return of Marvin Bagley III.
Defensively, the Wizards started out with energy, forcing Kings into a lot of turnovers, but as the game started to go on, Kings started to pick up their scoring. After going up by as much as 17 points, the Kings closed the deficit to 5 points at halftime.
Part of the Kings’ comeback in this game could be contributed to the Wizards’ very interesting lineup choice. In the beginning of crunch time (last 5 minutes of the game and the teams are within 5 points of each other), where the Kings were up by 1 point, the Wizards deployed a lineup of Sharife Cooper, Will Riley, Skal Labissiere, AJ Johnson and Anthony Gill. Wizards were looking deep into their bench with this one. Keep in mind this lineup was going against the likes of DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine.
The Wizards despite emptying the deep part of their bench, were still able to pull this one off as LaVine and DeRozan went cold to finish this one out.
Will Riley finished with a career-high in points (18), rebounds (6), and assists (6). Washington wins this one 116-112.
Wizards will host the New York Knicks on Wednesday evening at Capital One Arena.
