The Spurs snapped the Wizards’ eight-game winning streak with a 146-143 victory in Washington. It was an absolute barn burner that featured Bradley Beal scoring 45 points that ultimately weren’t enough to prevail in overtime against DeMar DeRozan’s 37.
It would be impossible to tell looking at the final score, but the story coming into the game was which of the two defenses, which had ranked in the top five in the league in the prior 10 games, was going to be the most effective. The answer proved to be “neither” early on. San Antonio had no way of stopping Bradley Beal and couldn’t keep Washington out of the paint, in no small part because Jakob Poeltl got into foul trouble early.