Home, sweet home: Beal, Wall lead Wizards past Hawks, 103-99

Forwards Otto Porter and Bojan Bogdanovic had good games for the Washington Wizards as well. All of Golden State’s starters were in double figures. The right-hander didn’t allow a long ball in his previous four starts this season. Given how dominant the Wizards are at home, look for them to win an instant classic with the Hawks in Game 7 in a few day’s time.

This is kind of a cop out as Schroder is already killing the Wizards in this series.

As a team, the Washington Wizards shot.372 from 3-point range during the regular season.

Paul led the Clippers with 28 points and J.J. Redick added 26 with injured star Blake Griffin watching from the bench, his right foot encased in a black walking boot. Washington will have an opportunity to close out the series on Friday night.

The Warriors advanced to the conference semifinals, where they’ll face the victor of the series between the Utah Jazz and the Los Angeles Clippers, which is tied at 2.

The Wizards jumped out to a 2-0 series lead then dropped two in Atlanta. Morris has scored a combined 18 points on an inefficient 7-of-24 shooting, while only pulling down six and four rebounds against Atlanta. On Wednesday, the load was light enough to get the Wizards one step closer to the conference semifinals. Atlanta dominated points in the paint 60-34.

Brandon Jennings started the fourth quarter and provided an instant boost while matched up against his series nemesis Jose Calderon. While Gortat finally attempted his first free throws of the series, he did not make score from the floor until five minutes remained in the game.

In Boston, Isaiah Thomas scored 11 of his 24 points in the fourth quarter and Avery Bradley also scored 24 for the Celtics who won their third consecutive game.

Lue trusts that the three-time champion knows how far to push himself without reaching his breaking point. Taurean Prince has played well in the starting lineup this postseason, and he does not look like a rookie out on the court.

John Wall, help on the wing. Beal has also excelled with 1.09 points per on 23 possessions off * a href=”http://stats.nba.com/players/off-screen/#!?CF=Poss*GE*9&Season=2016-17&SeasonType=Playoffs&sort=PPP&dir=1&PerMode=Totals” target=”_blank” *screens.

There’s no doubt the Wall-Beal guard tandem is one of the best in the league.

Millsap has excelled in the * a href=”http://stats.nba.com/players/post-up/#!?CF=Poss*GE*10&Season=2016-17&SeasonType=Playoffs&sort=PPG&dir=1″ target=”_blank” *post. A solid, physical frontcourt led by Marcin Gortat.

Simply put, the Hawks should be up 3-1 in this series heading back to Washington.

Howard admitted it was “frustrating” after he did not play at all in the fourth quarter of Game 2. As great as John Wall has played, Bradley Beal has been just as consistent while averaging 39 minutes per game. Schroder finished the series with 21 points in Game 4, but it was too little, too late. The Hawks missed their final two attempts from the field. We did battle back, tied it up in the third. The two teams shot similarly (42 percent for Washington and 44 percent for Atlanta).

The series will move back to Washington for Game 5.

But that won’t happen. Atlanta will be looking to make adjustments going into Game 6, though, and one of them should be reducing Howard’s minutes if he can’t get back in transition.

The Wizards were able to win Game 5 without much production from either of these two but as we’ve come to find out, winning on the road is a different animal.