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Tim BontempsESPN
Bradley Beal might have set a new career high with 60 points against the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday-evening, but that didn’t improve his mood after Washington’s 141-136 loss at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
“I’m pissed off,” Beal said. ‘I am angry. I don’t count [them]. … have lost all my highs in my career. So I don’t care. You can throw it right out the window with the other two or three I’ve had.
“I just want to win. Sometimes you can at least score 40, 50, 60, but I just want to win, whatever that looks like. We were a little short tonight.”
Beal was on fire for the first three quarters and threw in 57 points in the first 36 minutes. But after Washington caught up 10 points to start the fourth quarter with Beal on the bench, he returned with a 119 and 7:50 draw in the game.
From then on, however, Beal made just one shot, then passed a pair of pointless free throws in the last 10 seconds with the game well out of reach as Philadelphia – which shot 61.7 percent of the field and went 18-out -29 (62 , 1 percent) from 3-point range – hit enough shots to provoke a high-scoring slugfest in the end.
“I think they’ve made stops and played more plays than us on the track,” Beal said when asked what the difference was late. “I think Embiid hit a tough 3 … they made a lot of shots. They hit a lot of difficult shots.
“They shot 60 percent of the field and 62 percent of 3. You can’t win a match like that.”
For Beal, the afternoon before the game was consumed by events in Washington, DC, where angry supporters of President Trump stormed the Capitol.
Beal has lived in Washington, DC for over eight years since the Wizards took him third overall in the 2012 NBA draft. He said it was hard to see what was happening and not think about how things would have been different if the people who stormed the Capitol had been Black.
Sixers coach Doc Rivers and Atlanta Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce echoed the sentiment earlier Wednesday.
“It’s very emotional,” said Beal. “It’s very discouraging in many ways, because only the lack of sense of urgency was there to respond to what was going on in relation to protesters and Black Lives Matter over the summer. That was an instant highlight from around the world. Everyone was addressing the same problem. “
Earlier Wednesday, Beal retweeted a post from President Trump from the summer when Trump said anyone who violated federal property during Black Lives Matter protests in Portland would face 10 years in prison.
“So we’ll see if he’s got his foot in his mouth, or that’s something he really, really stands for,” Beal said. “Because of the people who invaded our Capitol … they invaded the Capitol. It’s unheard of.
“It’s disheartening here we are with the country.”
Beal, adding that he was frustrated with the decision not to impeach the officers involved in the Kenosha, Wisconsin, shooting last summer, said patience will be required to make the change he and so many others in. the NBA community have spent so much time already fighting for it.
“We keep fighting the good fight,” said Beal. “We will continue to assist these legislators and politicians and we will continue to hammer down the changes that are being made, but the most important thing is the word patience. Changes will not happen overnight. We need to understand what that looks like. and what that means.
“It will take patience.”
The Sixers, meanwhile, improved to a 7-1 best class thanks to another great performance from Embiid, finishing with 38 points on 11-for-20 shots – and after missing his first six shots – to go along with eight rebounds . , five assists, three steals and three blocks in 37 minutes.
And, in a typical way, Embiid wasn’t exactly shy about giving himself credit for dragging the Sixers to victory with one big game after another along the trajectory.
“They’re paying me to take over the game,” Embiid said. ‘They pay me to dominate. That is my job.
“I always give credit to my teammates. [But] I’m ready.”
Meanwhile, Embiid’s longtime nemesis, Russell Westbrook, left the match at the last minute and went straight to the locker room and reached for his right hand. After the game, Westbrook said he had dislocated his finger, and that he is not sure if he should miss once.
“That hurts,” said Westbrook, who finished with 20 points, eight rebounds and 12 assists in 39 minutes. “But it will be fine.”