After being down by as much as 25 points to the Boston Celtics, the Washington Wizards chipped away at the lead, but were unable to complete the comeback late in the fourth quarter.

Washington Wizards 93 Boston Celtics 101

The Washington Wizards looked slow right out of the gate, and it didn’t take long for the Boston Celtics to gain a double-digit advantage. John Wall turned the ball over four times and the Wizards coughed it up 9 times in the first quarter. The offense looked out of sync and the Celtics pushed the ball up the court, getting easy baskets in transition.

Washington tried to run their offense through Marcin Gortat in the post, but that clearly wasn’t working. He came up short on all of his shots, and the Wizards looked for Bradley Beal to give them a spark. Again, that failed to work, as Beal continued to clank wide open jump shots. Paul Pierce seemed to be the only one who could put the ball in the basket, but that wasn’t enough for the Wizards to come back in the first half.

Luckily for the Wizards, the Celtics have dropped big leads all season long.

BOS is 6-11 but lousy record is somewhat deceptive because #celtics have blown 5 games in which they held leads of 15-pts or more #wizards — Michael Lee (@MrMichaelLee) December 7, 2014

In the second half, the Washington Wizards started to move the ball well and their shots started to fall.

John Wall began to pick the Celtics’ defense apart, finding Rasual Butler wide open in the corner for consecutive three point shots. Butler scored 22 points off the bench, including six three point shots, and led the Wizards’ comeback. It wasn’t long before the Washington Wizards cut the lead to single digits. Butler has been absolutely spectacular and I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets an extended amount of playing time along side Wall after tonight’s game. The two have benefited a lot from playing with each other. Wall finished the game with 17 points, 8 rebounds, and 14 assists.

They got multiple stops and Wall controlled the pace of the game, and continued to find his shooters open on the perimeter. Butler missed a tough layup in transition that would’ve given the Washington Wizards a one point lead late in the fourth quarter, and the Celtics benefited from a few whistles on the other end of the floor. Still, the Wizards had a chance to come back, but an unfortunate blunder by the officials cost them the game in the fourth quarter.

Jeff Green ran over a Wizards defender while traveling, and Avery Bradley knocked down a three point shot from the corner to put the Wizards away.

Although I do credit them for making a push in the second half, the Washington Wizards shouldn’t have put themselves in a position to lose to the Boston Celtics. While the Celtics are a lot better than their record indicates, the Wizards put themselves in a hole early on with careless turnovers and were fighting to come back for most of the game.

Washington will have a chance to redeem themselves tomorrow night against the Celtics at the Verizon Center. Unlike the Wizards teams of the past, you can count on this year’s team to bounce back. It’s an 82 game season and I wouldn’t be too disappointed in their loss tonight.