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Beal recently surpassed John Wall as the Wizards’ leading scorer at 14.2 points per game and has been on a serious tear in his past eight games.
Over that stretch, Beal has scored at least 20 points five times, is averaging 20.8 points on 49.2 percent shooting from the field and 44.7 percent shooting from long distance. Beal has also recorded two double-doubles and displayed versatility and a solid feel for making timely plays – such as his huge offensive rebound in the closing seconds of a win against Houston. He snared 11 rebounds against the Knicks, at times grabbing them over all-star center Tyson Chandler or Amare Stoudemire.
In the first half against New York, Beal made a hard cut through the lane but stopped under the basket when he noticed that Knicks guard J.R. Smith was trying to beat him to the corner and Wall was about to get trapped by Chandler and Raymond Felton. Wall found him inside for an easy, uncontested dunk.
Beal erupted for 12 points in the third quarter, starting his run when he tracked down a loose ball beyond half court with 10 seconds on the shot clock and never appeared rushed as he split Iman Shumpert and Jason Kidd near the foul line, then completed a nifty lefty layup over Carmelo Anthony.
— Reported by Michael Lee of the Washington Post (Blog)
