By Lewis Gould
Bradley Beal scored 23 points, newbie Montrezl Harrell had 22 and the Wiz beat the Raptors 98-83.
Kyle Kuzma — acquired with Harrell in the trade that sent Russell Westbrook to the Lakers — had 11 points and 15 rebounds for Washington. Spencer Dinwiddie, acquired from the Nets in the same four-team deal, scored 13 for the Wizards, who led by as many as 29 points to give coach Wes Unseld Jr. a victory in his first game.
Washington’s players celebrated by dousing Unseld with water.
“I think we drenched all the clothes he had when he came back into the locker room,” center Daniel Gafford said.
After drying off, Unseld praised his team’s defensive effort.
“I just like the way we played,” Unseld said. “We started strong, we talked about having momentum. We knew at the start they were going to play with high energy and be very physical. We weathered the storm and made shots early.”
Washington shot 5 of 27 from 3-point range, but Toronto wasn’t any better, missing 19 of its first 21 3-point attempts and finishing 7 of 34. The Raptors shot 30.9% from the field overall.
“We weren’t really executing much of anything at either end,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said.
The Raptors scored the first five points of the game, promptly gave up a 7-0 run, and never led again.
Many in the sellout crowd of 19,800, including rapper Drake, had long since departed by the time the final buzzer sounded.
Toronto’s OG Anunoby had 11 points and 10 rebounds.
Barnes, the fourth pick in this year’s draft, shot 5 for 13 and made a team-high six turnovers.
“He got his feet wet and you can see a good player there,” Nurse said.
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