The news broke before the game that Bradley Beal was out with a tight right hamstring and Marcus Thornton would start in his place. Not the words you want to hear an hour and a half before tip-off against the World Champion Cleveland Cavaliers.
Cleveland is one of the best teams in the league at shooting 3-pointers and Washington is one of the worst at defending those shots. Thornton is a lot of things, but he is not a perimeter defender.
Scott Brooks noted the importance of defending the perimeter in his pre-game press conference:
“[The Cavs] are a great 3-point team, [making] 13 or some change a game and it’s one of our weaknesses at the moment, we’ve made six.