LOS ANGELES: Thomas Bryant stuffed the go-ahead dunk with 14.9 seconds left and the Washington Wizards held on for a 123-122 NBA victory over the Brooklyn Nets.
Bradley Beal led the Wizards with 27 points and 10 rebounds and assisted on Bryant’s decisive basket—which stood up as Nets stars Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant both missed on the final possession of the contest.
It was a drama-filled finish at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot put Brooklyn ahead 122-121 with a wide-open layup with 28.2 seconds remaining.
After a timeout, a double-teamed Beal managed to find Bryant under the basket.
Irving, who led all scorers with 30 points, missed a three-pointer with less than six seconds remaining. Brooklyn corralled the rebound, but Durant’s last-gasp effort also missed.
“We’ve got two of the best players ever to touch a basketball on the other side, so it’s a tough task, man, but I think we did an excellent job of accepting that challenge,” Beal said of the Wizards defense.
Russell Westbrook finished with 24 points and 10 rebounds for the Wizards, adding five rebounds after notching triple-doubles in his first four games with Washington.
Bryant scored 21 points and grabbed 14 rebounds for Washington, who have won two straight after an 0-5 start to the season.
In Memphis, the reigning champion Los Angeles Lakers notched their third straight road win, LeBron James scoring 13 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter of a 108-94 victory over the Grizzlies in Memphis.
The Grizzlies, without reigning Rookie of the Year Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. because of injury, used a 17-0 scoring run to take an 11-point lead at the end of the first quarter and led by as many as 12 in the first half. But the Lakers closed the half on a 20-9 scoring run to lead by two at the interval and with a determined James leading the way finally pulled away in the final period.
“We were doing a lot of jostling with Memphis,” James said. “At the start of the fourth, I wanted to try and implement myself and my scoring a little bit more. Get a bit more in attack mode and see if I could kind of open the game up — and we were able to do that.”
Lakers star Anthony Davis scored 12 of his 17 points in the second half, including six in the fourth quarter, when the Lakers out-scored the Grizzlies 31-19.
Spanish big man Marc Gasol, who started his NBA career in Memphis where he spent 11 seasons, played there for the first time since he was traded by the Grizzlies to the Toronto Raptors two seasons ago.
He finished with seven points, six rebounds for the Lakers – along with four stitches in a cut above his left eye received in a fall.
The Lakers bench chipped in 40 points, led by 16 from Montrezl Harrell.
Jayson Tatum delivered the game-winner in the Boston Celtics’ 122-120 victory over the Pistons in Detroit, his fallaway jumper with 2.9 seconds left making the difference as the Celtics bounced back from a narrow loss to the Pistons on the same court on Friday.
Tatum wrong-footed Detroit’s Blake Griffin and made a fall-away jumper – then blocked Griffin’s effort at the other end to seal the win.
Tatum finished with 24 points and 12 assists. Jaylen Brown led the Celtics with 31 points from an impressive 13 of 16 shooting performance.
Elsewhere, Denver’s Nikola Jokic posted his fourth triple-double of the season with 19 points, 12 rebounds and 12 assists and Jamal Murray scored 32 points for the Nuggets in a 124-109 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves.
