The Wizards entered Tuesday night’s road trip finale looking for a positive note to come home to. Unfortunately for Washington, their hosts in Brooklyn had different plans as the Nets used a late-game surge to topple the Wizards, 103-98. Bradley Beal posted another strong performance with 28 points, though not with his usual efficiency on 11-of-33 shooting, and Washington couldn’t find its way offensively as a whole.

Neither team shot well from beyond the 3-point arc on the night, but Brooklyn’s six additional makes from deep certainly played a factor in the end result. Washington hit just four 3-pointers on the night (Beal was 0-for-7) in comparison, a tie for a season-low set in Utah earlier in the road trip.

With just under a minute to play, the Wizards held a narrow one-point lead before Brooklyn’s Allen Crabbe hit a 3 to re-take the lead that the Nets held for much of the quarter. In Washington’s final opportunity to tie the game down three with eight seconds remaining, a costly five-second violation on the inbound put the game on ice for Brooklyn.

Next, the Wizards will finally head home from a long five-game road trip on which they finished 2-3. Tuesday’s loss also moved Washington to 6-7 on the season against teams below .500.

A few additional notes from Tuesday night’s loss…

Game of runs

The Wizards went on an impressive 14-2 run in the third quarter to close what was a 14-point gap in Brooklyn’s favor. They went on to take a brief three-point lead early in the fourth before the Nets found a big swing of their own in the form of a 10-0 run that gave them a seven-point cushion with nine minutes to play

Closing time

Tuesday will serve as another frustrating reminder for the Wizards that they need to improve in crunch time. In the final five minutes of the game, Washington committed four of their 11 turnovers on the night and were outscored 9-3.

Bench play

Scott Brooks turned to his bench heavily to end the road trip, and they did deliver positive +/- numbers across the board and outscored Brooklyn’s second unit, 43-36. Conversely, each of the Wizards’ starters posted a negative ratio. All five of the Wizards’ bench players scored six or more points, with Kelly Oubre’s 12 points (nine rebounds) leading the way. Jason Smith (9 points, 5 rebounds), Mike Scott (8 points, 5 rebounds) and Tomas Satoransky (8 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists) all put in solid efforts Tuesday.