How Bradley Beal inspires Wizards defense: If Brad can do it, everybody can do it -

WASHINGTON — In a split second Tuesday night, Bradley Beal decided to plant himself in the path of an accelerating Detroit Pistons player and attempted to draw a foul. Beal shuffled out of the restricted circle, allowed Saddiq Bey to collide into him and crashed backward onto the court. An official whistled Bey for charging.

What that sequence represents may propel the Washington Wizards for the remainder of the regular season.

Beal’s decision symbolized something important. It’s one thing for the 10th person in a rotation to take a charge, but it’s another thing entirely when the franchise’s star does it.

It inspires the rest of the guys to match his effort.

“You see his sacrifice also on the defensive end,” Wizards wing Deni Avdija said. “You see he ends up on the floor. It doesn’t really matter (what) your role on the team (is). Everybody’s sacrificing somehow.”

Beal’s sacrifice barely registered on the box score. It counted as one of the two fouls Bey committed in the Wizards’ convincing 120-99 victory. But in the big picture, it matters.

When this Wizards team assembled for training camp almost one month ago, coach Wes Unseld Jr. told his players for the umpteenth time that the only way the team could succeed would be to care about defense. The team’s three best players — Beal, Kristaps Porziņģis and Kyle Kuzma — acknowledged publicly that they would have to set the tone for Unseld’s vision to become a reality.

“That’s the million-dollar question right there,” Kuzma said before the team’s first practice. “Obviously, we all can score. Duh. But it’s about: How important is defense to us? Because if it’s important to us three, then everybody on the team is going to be dialed into it, right? That’s usually how it works.”

Beal taking a charge in Washington’s fourth regular-season game against a speeding 6-foot-8, 215-pound swingman exemplified the kind of effort Kuzma hoped to see.

The Wizards have won three of their first four games for many reasons, but none of them is more important than their defense. None of Washington’s opponents so far has shot better than 42.7 percent.

Last year’s Wizards also opened the season 3-1, including two stellar defensive performances, and that team started to fade out a month later, undone by illnesses, injuries and a lack of buy-in from several key players.

But in addition to a better, deeper roster this season, Washington can cite another difference: Beal’s defense.

Few people would suggest that the new-look Beal is the second coming of reigning NBA Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Smart. But Beal has exceeded expectations within this small sample size. In the Wizards’ pulse-pounding victory over the Chicago Bulls on Friday, Beal asked Unseld to guard five-time All-Star DeMar DeRozan during the game’s final minutes. Beal performed well in that brief role.

Beal displayed more of that hard-nosed attitude in the win over the Pistons. His returning teammates know all too well that Beal suffered a season-ending ligament tear in his left wrist last January when he took a charge against the Memphis Grizzlies. That injury required surgery and a months-long rehabilitation process.

Yet there he was Tuesday night, taking a charge once again, risking himself to injury.

That explains why Beal standing between Bey and the basket resonates so deeply.

“Oh, it’s huge,” Unseld said. “It’s just another point of emphasis that we can point to. If he can do it, anybody can do it. We’re asking a lot of him, and he’s bought into the defensive side. I think he’s been unbelievably good on the defensive end with his energy, his attention to detail and asking him to do it on both ends of the floor. Thus far, he’s done it.”

Unseld and his assistant coaches spent a large portion of their offseason dreaming up ways to improve a defense that finished last year 25th in points allowed per possession. They simplified some X’s and O’s so their players could play a bit more on instinct. They even decided to create a Defensive Player of the Game belt that would go to a deserving person after each victory.

Beal’s example means more than the belt. The five-year, $251 million contract he signed during the offseason places more responsibility on his shoulders.

“I know that … if I’m engaged and locked in and energetic and ready to go on the defensive end, that speaks volumes to the rest of the team, and everybody else follows suit,” Beal said. “We almost have a saying: ‘If Brad can do it, everybody can do it.’ So if I can get down in a stance and get after it, everybody can. It’s something that we hold each other accountable to do, starting with me.”

That accountability manifested itself in at least one other way Tuesday. After the Pistons decimated the Wizards by scoring 11 second-chance points in the game’s first 15 minutes, Wizards point guard Monté Morris said players urged each other to do better during stoppages in play. Washington limited Detroit to just seven more second-chance points for the remainder of the game.

Even before the game started, Beal felt some unusual tightness in his lower back.

But despite the discomfort, Beal still took Bey’s charge.

“It just shows you your best player put his body on the line like that,” Morris said. “You ain’t got no choice but to do it like Brad. He’s just so selfless.”

This season has only just started, and a skeptic would say the first several games may have been a fluke. The schedule will toughen soon. Sunday will begin a stretch of games against the Boston Celtics, Philadelphia 76ers (twice), Brooklyn Nets and Grizzlies.

But after a week of games, the Wizards rank seventh in points allowed per possession.

It’s an improvement.

An improvement sparked in large part by Beal.

(Photo of Jaden Ivey, Bradley Beal and Isaiah Stewart: Geoff Burke / USA Today)

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