The Wizards' Jordan Poole and Bub Carrington celebrate after the Raptors' apparent winning basket was overturned Saturday night in Toronto. (Thomas Skrlj/Canadian Press/AP)
TORONTO — Jordan Poole was halfway to the locker room when he heard the Washington Wizards’ coaches calling him back.
He thought he had just seen the Toronto Raptors seal a comeback victory Saturday night with Jamal Shead’s buzzer-beater. His floater banked in, prompting chaos at Scotiabank Arena. The Raptors mobbed Shead as the Wizards put their hands on their knees, collapsed to the bench or began trudging to the locker room.
But Shead’s fingertip — which clung to the ball as the backboard lit up in red — inverted all emotions. His shot didn’t count, giving the Wizards a 118-117 win. Poole led all scorers with 34 points to help Washington improve to 13-49 with its second straight win. RJ Barrett scored 23 points for the Raptors (21-43), who had won three straight.
“I just wanted to see how fast the refs were going to get out of there,” said Poole, who watched wide-eyed and pumped his fist after the basket was overturned.
The relief of victory affected everyone differently. Bilal Coulibaly, who had flopped onto the bench amid Toronto’s celebration, showed off his vertical leap upon getting the good news. Richaun Holmes did the same. Marcus Smart, who had been guarding Shead on the final shot and doubled over when it went in, joked with teammates afterward that he wasn’t a top defensive player anymore, rookie Bub Carrington said.
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What was Carrington’s reaction?
“I was like, ‘’Bout time; let’s go home,’” he said. “‘Turn on Sexyy Red in the locker room.’”
The rapper’s 2023 hit “SkeeYee” blared in the locker room after the game, mixing with an emotion that rarely has been noticeable with the Wizards during a trying rebuilding season: elation.
Coulibaly, who missed a poster dunk earlier in the game but capitalized on his second chance and finished with 18 points, pulled it up for anyone who wanted to see. Carrington, perhaps the best dancer on the team, showed off his moves in front of his locker. Veterans Corey Kispert and Anthony Gill did so as well, albeit briefly.
“This is a tradition,” Carrington said, perhaps joking. “Bub. DJ. Sexyy Red — after wins.”
Middleton’s impact is obvious
A lot has changed for Khris Middleton since Feb. 5. That day, a trade sent the 33-year-old wing from a Milwaukee Bucks team firmly entrenched in the Eastern Conference playoffs to a Wizards squad holding down the worst record in the NBA.
Middleton joined a Washington team with few peers — particularly on offense. He entered Saturday ranked 38th among active players in career scoring. He’s the only Wizard in the top 100.
Middleton also is a three-time all-star, an Olympic gold medalist and an NBA champion. But his résumé — while eclipsing that of every other Wizard — has not resulted in the veteran dominating the ball or the bulk of Washington’s shot attempts.
In fact, Middleton has not led the Wizards in shot attempts in any of his first seven games with the club. He took just nine Saturday, making four to finish with 12 points — including what ended up the game-winner, a fadeaway jumper with 46.3 seconds remaining that put the Wizards up by three.
Middleton did miss a three-pointer on the Wizards’ next possession, leading to Shead’s last shot.
“I’m just trying to make the right reads, play basketball,” he said at the Wizards’ morning shootaround. “You have the ball in your hands a lot — a lot of focus, a lot of attention is on you. And it’s on me to distribute the ball and not just worry about myself.”
Middleton’s usage rate entering Saturday — the percentage of plays when he’s on the floor that ended with him taking a shot or committing a turnover — was 20.7 percent with the Bucks and 21.3 percent with the Wizards, according to NBA.com. Both would be the lowest since his third season in the league.
Coach Brian Keefe occasionally has played Middleton as a de facto point guard in the Wizards’ multipronged attack. Middleton had two assists against the Raptors, the first time in the past six games that he had been held under three. He entered Saturday having assisted on 27.3 percent of the Wizards’ field goals when he was on the floor — the second-highest rate of his career if it held up over an entire season.
He has, in many ways, become the steadying presence absent from the squad because of guard Malcolm Brogdon’s injuries. Entering Saturday, the Wizards were a whopping 21.5 points per 100 possessions better with Middleton on the court, a 99th-percentile mark among all players, per advanced statistics website Cleaning the Glass.
“He’s never rushed. He’s never in a hurry,” Kispert said Friday. “He uses his body really well, fakes really well. He reads the game even before he has the ball in his hands. ... He’s seen pretty much everything at every level, so no matter what defenses throw at him, he has a counter for it.”
Added Coulibaly: “[Middleton] sees the game like nobody else.”
Middleton has found quick chemistry running pick and rolls with starting center Alex Sarr. Entering Saturday’s game, Middleton had six assists to the No. 2 draft pick, the most of any Wizard since Middleton arrived.
Sarr has started to notice the attention Middleton gets — with defenses playing more aggressive coverages such as going over ball screens, having big men play farther away from the basket or blitzing — and is correctly identifying those situations as ones in which he should expect passes from Middleton, the veteran said.
They haven’t always resulted in scores, but Middleton’s willingness and ability to find Sarr is among the reasons the rookie has drastically improved as a roll man since a trying start to the season. On Saturday, Middleton lobbed to Sarr (10 points, 14 rebounds) for an alley-oop on a fourth-quarter fast break.
Middleton also has avoided frustration when the Wizards’ young core is “doing crazy stuff,” Coulibaly said. Instead, a calm conversation usually ensues. After a Coulibaly turnover late in Saturday’s win, Middleton greeted him with a high five as they came back down the court.
“He’s just keeping it 100 for real,” Coulibaly said.
All of it makes Middleton — who has a player option worth about $34 million next season that he is likely to accept — an ideal veteran for the rebuilding Wizards: He’s a stabilizing force as a balanced offensive threat on the court and a mentor off it.
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