WASHINGTON — After guard Bub Carrington walked into the Washington Wizards’ locker room around 9:35 p.m. Saturday, another game in his rookie year completed, he noticed something different about his teammates.
“I’m seeing a lot of teeth,” he said. “It’s a great feeling that everyone’s smiling, everyone’s happy.”
Finally, the Wizards had something positive to savor. For the first time since Oct. 30, they won a game. They overcame a career-high scoring night by Nikola Jokić to beat the Denver Nuggets 122-113. Washington’s 16-game losing skid — tied for the longest skid in franchise history — had ended.
“Oh, we needed that,” swingman Bilal Coulibaly said. “We’ve been pretty bad these past few games.”
The Wizards had plenty of heroes. Jordan Poole scored 39 points. He punctuated one of his career-high nine 3-pointers by pinching his nostrils closed with his right thumb and index finger and waiving his left hand aloft. He calls it his “Drowning in the Poole” celebration.
“Been waiting to do that one for a while,” Poole said, smiling.
Justin Champagnie, on a two-way contract, added a career-high 23 points.
Jonas Valančiūnas, arguably Washington’s most consistent player in this miserable season, scored 20 points, collected 12 rebounds and dished out five assists. He also spent most of the evening trying to corral Jokić.
When the final buzzer sounded, Valančiūnas raised his arms aloft.
A winless November threatened to become a winless December. Just two nights earlier, the Dallas Mavericks humiliated the overmatched Wizards at Capital One Arena, 137-101.
Washington entered Saturday with a laundry list of injuries, including to veterans Kyle Kuzma and Malcolm Brogdon and rookies Alex Sarr and Kyshawn George.
But Denver is trying to survive despite significant injuries of its own. Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon and Dario Saric sat out Saturday’s game, forcing Jokić to try to win the game without much support. The three-time NBA MVP did his best, scoring a career-best 56 points. But Jokić needed 38 field-goal attempts (another career high) and 13 free-throw attempts to reach that total.
“He’s a load,” Wizards coach Brian Keefe said. “He’s a tough guy. I mean, he keeps coming at you. People don’t realize how great a conditioned athlete he is. … I thought Jonas fought him as much as he possibly could. Marvin (Bagley III) fought him. It shows you how good he is. Obviously, he’s a historical player in our game.”
It’s no coincidence that Washington won the game despite the absences of Sarr and George. All season long, the Wizards have given heavy minutes to their three rookies. Although team officials expect that substantial early experience will help the trio of rookies down the line, there is a drawback in the present to allocating so much playing time to an inexperienced pair of 19-year-olds (Carrington and Sarr) and an inexperienced pair of 20-year-olds (Coulibaly and George).
With so many players out, Keefe employed a nine-man rotation, including 40 minutes apiece for Poole and Coulibaly.
It’s no secret that Coulibaly is enduring a confounding offensive slump — a slump that has unnerved Wizards fans who are understandably desperate to see the team develop a star player. On Saturday, however, Coulibaly at least supplemented a 2-of-9 shooting night with four steals and three thunderous blocks.
With Washington ahead 120-113 in the game’s closing seconds, Denver’s Julian Strawther drove into the lane against Coulibaly and made the mistake of shooting as he was starting to descend. The result? In a sequence that resembled a volleyball player spiking the ball, Coulibaly swatted the shot to the floor.
“He was wreaking havoc out there,” Keefe said. “Steals. Blocks. … Yes, Bilal hasn’t made some shots lately, but that has not impacted his energy, his effort, his defense. I actually think his defense is actually improving in the last week. Look at some of the guys he’s guarded and what they’ve done against him, it’s not been that great. And that’s a testament to who he is: battling through adversity. And that’s part of the deal, and he’s accepted that, and he’s embraced the challenge and got a big block at the end of the game.”
Coulibaly said his final block — the one against Strawther — was his favorite block of the game because it sealed the win.
“Everybody was happy,” Coulibaly said.
To put it another way: It was a welcome change for everyone within the Wizards, who’ve stumbled to a 3-18 start and the league’s worst record.
Late in the fourth quarter, as Poole stood at the free-throw line, some fans chanted “MVP! MVP! MVP!”
“Obviously, we want to win more games,” Poole said. “We want to be extremely competitive night in and night out. But through that, we’re learning. We’ve got a lot of guys learning, a lot of guys in and out (with injuries). So, you don’t want to jump ship just because there’s a little bit of adversity. Everything that we’ve been getting taught all season just happened to show tonight.”
(Top photo of Jordan Poole and Jonas Valančiūnas: Geoff Burke / Imagn Images)
