(Picture above from Washington Wizards twitter @WashWizards)

WIZARDS ARE GOING TO THE SECOND ROUND!!! Washington beat Atlanta 116-99 in Atlanta to win the series 4-2. As always, I will give a short and long recap.

Short Recap:

The Wizards hopped out to a first quarter lead with John Wall, Bradley Beal, and Markieff Morris doing most of the scoring, but the real story of quarter was the teams getting into a scuffle that led to 4 players receiving technical fouls. In the second, Atlanta and Washington went back and forth until the Wizards went on a big run in the last few minutes to get a big halftime lead. Hawks cut lead to 3 in second half, but John Wall closed out the game on both ends of the floor and led the Wizards to the Eastern Conference Finals.

Long Recap:

Markieff Morris scored 8 early points in the first quarter to help lead Washington to an early lead with Wall and Beal also contributing. Wall scored 6 in a row at one point, punctuated by a left handed slam. Towards the end of the first, Beal threw down a fast break dunk and was shoved by Kent Bazemore from underneath, but no foul was called. This led to a brief scuffle between the teams, and in the end Beal, Bazemore, Jason Smith, and Hardaway Jr were all assessed technical fouls. The Wizards went on a big run to close the half and were up 65-46 at the break lead by Wall’s 20 points on 8/12 shooting and Beal’s 17 points. In the third, Otto Porter knocked down a three pointer to give the Wiz a 22 point lead, their largest of the game. Immediately after, the Hawks went on a big run and Washington only led by 7 going into the fourth quarter. The turning point of the game was when the Hawks had cut the lead to 93-90 and appeared Dennis Schroder appeared to have a wide open layup to make it a 1 point game. But Wall came out of nowhere and had one of his trademark chase down blocks, and then scored on back-to-back possessions to make the lead 7 again. Wall closed out the game and when the buzzer sounded the score was 116-99 Wizards. Wall finished with a playoff career high 42 points on 16/25 shooting in 43 minutes, while Beal also went off for 31 points on 11/17 shooting (a combined 73 points on 27/42 shooting!).

The only bad news from this game is that it was Phil Chenier’s last game announcing for Washington (Chenier and Steve Buckhantz are the best team announcers in the NBA).

The Wizards will face the Boston Celtics in the second round beginning on Sunday at TD Garden in Boston. Series and Game 1 preview will be posted soon, so check back soon. Get ready for the funeral.

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