Bradley Beal had a lovely video tribute while Phoenix’s starters were announced in Washington. Then he went out and supplied some additional clips for any future highlight reels.
Beal was excellent in his return to Washington on Sunday, scoring a season-high 43 points as the Suns defeated the Wizards 140-112. He might have scored 50 if he hadn’t been withdrawn with 8:44 left due to his team’s large lead. As he walked away, the audience applauded him.
“Tonight was awesome,” Beal remarked. “To be back in the city that helped me develop into a man and recruited me on my 19th birthday… A lot of fantastic memories, guy, and that tribute film was amazing.”
Beal spent 11 seasons with the Wizards before being traded to Phoenix last offseason. Washington was moving in a different path, as shown by the team’s current 9-40 record. Beal now has the opportunity to play for a star-studded squad alongside Kevin Durant and Devin Booker.
“We made a mutual choice back in the summer. “It was not a spiteful or disgusting divorce,” Beal explained. “It was a good separation.” There are no hard feelings in it.
After recognizing the crowd’s standing ovation and slapping his chest during the pregame homage, Beal put on a display, scoring 14 points in the first quarter and another 12 in the second. A two-handed breakaway dunk netted him 20 points. Another dunk in the third quarter brought his total to 35.
Wearing a black protective mask after fracturing his nose last week, Beal capped the third quarter with a 3-pointer with 0.3 seconds left before shooting a free throw when Washington was penalized for a technical foul. This awarded him 41 points.
He played briefly in the fourth quarter, but the game was already decided, and coach Frank Vogel eventually pulled Beal after a game-high 31:01.
“I was not even going to leave him in to start the fourth, to be honest,” Vogel told reporters. “So we left him in a few extra minutes, but you have to approach the game the right way.”
Beal went 16 of 21 from the field and did not appear to be putting too much pressure on himself, despite the fact that his teammates plainly wanted him to succeed.
“It wasn’t like something we talked about in the locker room, but you can kind of sense the energy of the team, like that’s what we were going to do,” Beal told reporters. “And I’m not mad at it.”
Beal was unable to play in the Wizards’ December game at Phoenix due to a sprained ankle. This was his 26th game of the season, and the Suns want their three stars to have some experience playing together before the playoffs.
“It has definitely been an adjustment. “You go from being very ball dominant to now sharing that dominance with two other guys — and three, including Nurk,” Beal explained. “My role here is completely different from what it was. “It is a process.”
Although the future seems bright for Beal in Phoenix, this weekend allowed him to reconnect to his NBA origins and appreciate what Washington meant to him.
“It was a very cool experience, the last few days,” remarked Beal. “It was great to see so many familiar faces. That really inspired me to play a little harder, to be grateful for everything everyone has done for me here, to be grateful for where I am and the team I’m on right now.”
