– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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WASHINGTON — Kyle Kuzma was super, Luka Doncic was human, and the Washington Wizards bench was close to superhuman to make up for the absence of two of the team’s stars to earn a quality victory.
Kuzma scored 36 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and dished out six assists, while three of Washington’s four players coming off the bench scored in double figures as the Wizards came back from a big deficit early to defeat the Dallas Mavericks 113-105 at Capital One Arena on Thursday night. The win was made more impressive given that the Wizards were without both Bradley Beal and Kristaps Porzingis, and almost everyone who needed to step up to make up for what was lost without the pair did so.
Defensively, the Wizards held the league’s leading scorer, Doncic, to his lowest-scoring output of the season as Doncic scored just 22 points and missed 13 of his 21 shot attempts from the floor.
“It’s a character win, it’s a gutsy win, however you want to characterize it,” Wizards coach Wes Unseld Jr. said. “Never ideal to be down a few players, especially two guys that really do a lot for you offensively.”
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Friday evening’s game, with all photos taken by DC-area photographer Rodney Pierce. After clicking on the first photo to enlarge the picture, make sure to press the left and right arrow buttons to scroll through the rest of the pictures. There are 26 pictures in total.
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