SATURDAY, AUGUST 1 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ M2 D3
KIM KLEMENT/ASSOCIATED PRESSW izards guard Jerome Robinson (12) scored 20 points in a loss to the Phoenix Suns on Friday — Washington’s first game since March 10.
ASSOCIATED PRESSGiannis Antetokounmpo ap-
peared on his way out of the game.
Moments later, he was instead on
his way to the foul line.
A replay overturned what would
have been the NBA MVP’s sixth
foul with 1:28 left, and he made the
most of his second chance, helping
the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Bos-
ton Celtics, 1 19-112, on Friday in
Kissimmee, Fla.
Antetokounmpo had 36 points,
15 rebounds and seven assists in
the Bucks’ first game in the re-
start. Milwaukee improved the
NBA’s best record to 54-12 and
moved within a victory of clinch-
ing the top seed in the Eastern
Conference for the second
straight year.
It appeared the Bucks would
have to do it without the Antetok-
ounmpo when Marcus Smart slid
in front of him as he scored in the
lane. A charge was called but even-
tually overturned, with Smart say-
ing the official explanation from
referees was that he was too late.
Antetokounmpo made the free
throw to make it 110-107. Khris
Middleton then knocked down a
three-pointer for a six-point ad-
vantage.
Smart scored 23 points for the
Celtics, and Jaylen Brown had 22,
but star forward Jayson Tatum
had a nightmarish restart. He had
five points on 2-for-18 shooting.
l MAGIC 128, NETS 118: Evan
Fournier scored 24 points, Nikola
Vucevic had 22, and Orlando
picked up where it left off before
the NBA season was suspended,
routing Brooklyn in its first game
of the restart.
Playing as the designated road
team not far from its arena, the
Magic extended its winning
streak to four and moved back
ahead of the Nets into seventh
place in the Eastern Conference.
The Magic outscored the Nets
75-43 in the middle two quarters.
Players and coaches from both
teams knelt during the national
anthem except for Orlando’s Jona-
than Isaac. Clifford said he dis-
cussed his decision with the Magicand was supported by his team-
mates.
l TRAIL BLAZERS 140,
GRIZZLIES 135 (OT): CJ McCol-
lum scored 33 points, teaming
with Damian Lillard for 11 of Port-
land’s 16 in overtime, as the Trail
Blazers earned a desperately
needed victory over Memphis in
their first game of the restart.
Lillard finished with 29 points
and nine assists as the Trail Blaz-
ers boosted their hopes for a sev-
enth consecutive playoff appear-
ance. Carmelo Anthony added
21 points as Portland moved with-
in 2^1 / 2 games of the Grizzlies for the
No. 8 spot in the Western Confer-
ence.
McCollum started fast, scoring
19 points in the first half, and
finished strong with two crucial
three-pointers in overtime.
Jaren Jackson Jr. had 33 points
and Ja Morant added 22 points
and 11 assists for Memphis.
l SPURS 129, KINGS 120: De-
Mar DeRozan scored 17 of his
27 points in the fourth quarter to
help San Antonio pull away and
beat Sacramento.
DeRozan shot 10 for 13 and had
10 assists for the Spurs, who shot
53.3 percent from the field.
Derrick White matched a ca-
reer high with 26 points in San
Antonio’s first game of the restart.
Before the game, Coach Gregg
Popovich and assistant Becky
Hammon stood for the national
anthem while the remainder of
the coaches and players for both
teams knelt.
De’Aaron Fox scored a career-
high 39 points and Bogdan Bog-
danovic added 24 for the Kings.
l ROCKETS 153, MAVER-
ICKS 149 (OT): Robert Covington
tipped in a James Harden missed
free throw with 3.3 seconds left to
force overtime, and Houston went
on to beat Dallas to move into fifth
place in the Western Conference.
Harden had 4 9 points, n ine re-
bounds and eight assists, and Rus-
sell Westbrook added 31 points,
11 rebounds and eight assists.
The Mavericks were led by Kri-
staps Porzingis, who had 39 points
and 16 rebounds. L uka Doncic had
a triple-double but shot just 1 for 9
from three-point range. Trey
Burke provided a spark off the
bench, scoring 31 points and mak-
ing 8 of 10 threes.NBA ROUNDUPMilwaukee beats Boston
after late overturned call
BUCKS 119,
CELTICS 112Cup titles. He is in his second
season coaching Greenville (S.C.)
Triumph, the 2019 runner-up in
USL League One (third division).
Harkes actually started two FA
Cup finals in 1993 because, back
then, a final that ended in a draw
required a replay a few days later.
After Sheffield Wednesday and
Arsenal played to a 1-1 tie —
Harkes assisted on David Hirst’s
second-half equalizer — Arsenal
prevailed, 2-1, on Andy Linighan’s
goal in the 119th minute.
Wednesday made the quarter-
finals four years later but hasn’t
advanced past the fifth round
since. The last time the club was in
the first division was 2000. “For us
at that time, it was glory years,”
Harkes said, “and I just happen to
be there.”
Howard was in uniform for
three FA Cup finals and started
twice. In 2004, he and Manchester
United blanked Millwall, 3-0.
A year later, he was Roy Car-
roll’s backup for a loss to Arsenal
in a penalty-kick tiebreaker fol-
lowing a 0-0 draw. In 2009, he
conceded Lampard’s go-ahead
goal in the 72nd minute of Ever-
ton’s 2-1 loss to Chelsea.
Pulisic is not only an American
rarity in the FA Cup final; he is a
U.S. rarity in the Premier League.
Newcastle defender DeAndre
Yedlin is the only other one play-
ing regularly. Several Americans
are in the second-tier English
Championship. Most of the top
U.S. exports compete in the Ger-
man Bundesliga.
What Pulisic will miss out on
Saturday is the FA Cup’s pageant-
ry. For health reasons, Wembley’s
90,000 seats will remain empty,
and fans have been discouraged
from congregating outside the
stadium. Typically, Wembley Way,
linking the tube station to the
venue, is transformed into a sea of
colors reflecting the participating
clubs.
Nonetheless, Harkes said:
“Here we are, many years later. We
helped advance the game, and
now the next generation of play-
ers is coming through. It’s pretty
special to see Christian in an FA
Cup final. You look at the big
picture, and you say he does our
country proud.”
[email protected]soccer r eturned from the pan-
demic shutdown six weeks ago:
four goals, two assists, multiple
drawn fouls that led to goals and a
confidence and command that be-
lie his age and nationality.
Chelsea finished fourth in the
20-team league, good enough for
a place in the 2020-21 UEFA
Champions League.
Despite missing two months
with an adductor injury, Pulisic
recorded nine league goals — the
most by an American in England’s
top flight since Fulham’s Clint
Dempsey had 17 in 2011-12.
Chelsea nominated him and
French striker Olivier Giroud for
the Premier League’s player of the
month award. On July 22, after
Pulisic posted a goal and an assist
against champion Liverpool, the
BBC named him to the league’s
team of the week, adding, “Pulisic
is going to be a star next season.”
Chelsea Manager Frank Lam-
pard said, “He is so young, and he
has such natural talent, and he
creates goals and scores goals.”
Pulisic is nearing the end of his
first season with Chelsea follow-
ing a $73 million transfer — a
record for an American player —
from Germany’s Borussia Dort-
mund. He is no stranger to big
matches: He was part of Dort-
mund’s German Cup champion-
ship in 2017 and has scored three
times in the Champions League.
The Premier League trophy is
the biggest prize in English soc-
cer, but the FA Cup final offers
deep meaning. (FA stands for
Football Association, the sport’s
governing body in England.)
Running concurrently with
league play, the knockout tourna-
ment is open to more than 700 eli-
gible clubs, from the amateur
(10th-division Harrogate Railway
Athletic) to the world renowned
(Manchester United).
Arsenal has won it the most
times (13), while Chelsea is tied
for third (eight).
“I am so happy for him. Those
are special moments that don’t
come around often,” said Harkes,
53, who, after six seasons in Eng-
land with Sheffield Wednesday,
Derby County and West Ham, cap-
tained D.C. United to two MLS
PULISIC FROM D1
Pulisic gives FA Cup
some rare U.S. flavor
food truck — the “best part” of
bubble life, according to Andrew
Brewer, an assistant coach of the
Maple Leafs.
Players and coaches also have
access to BMO Field, steps away
from Hotel X, where they can
watch NHL games on the field’s
large video screen as well as en-
gage in other outdoor activities.
For Canadian players such as
Capitals winger Tom Wilson, who
grew up in Toronto, the absence of
a live audience will be an adjust-
ment. Wilson normally has family
in attendance when the Capitals
visit Toronto. Now tarps cover the
seats in Scotiabank Arena’s lower
bowl.
Still, playing again where the
sport is most treasured will mean
something, even if the loudest
sound in the building will come
from the blare of the goal horn.
“I think there is definitely a
feeling, no matter what, when you
walk into those doors,” Wilson
said. “A cool feeling that you know
is part of your dream come true
when you get to play at home. As a
kid you always picture yourself
playing in your home city, when
you are playing in the backyard or
basement or whatever. So that
feeling will still be there.”
[email protected]
[email protected]out. But even in those that are
open, the experience of consum-
ing the game — elbow to elbow at
the bar, high-fiving and shouting
at a television screen — will be
different.
In British Columbia, a recent
uptick in cases has led to the
imposition of some restrictions:
no self-service ordering drinks at
the bar, no groups larger than six
people at a table and no wander-
ing to other tables.
At 1st RND, a sports bar in
downtown Edmonton with
roughly 50 television screens,
general manager Franco Cammi-
natore said that “we definitely
encourage everyone not to do any
kind of physical touching. We
don’t allow people to move be-
tween tables. Everything is six feet
apart. We have directional arrows
on our floor.”
The players themselves are liv-
ing in “secure zones” within the
two cities.
At Hotel X, a luxury hotel in
Toronto with a rooftop pool and
rooms overlooking the water-
front, security guards in m asks
and neon yellow vests dot the
perimeter, separating the public
from the teams housed inside. At
the nearby Fairmont Royal York, a
Tim Horton’s flag marks the loca-
tion of the coffee chain’s exclusiveThe NHL secured various ex-
emptions for teams entering the
two hub cities. Teams were ex-
cluded from the mandatory 14-
day quarantine for all those enter-
ing Canada and from restrictions
on “nonessential” travel at the
U.S.-Canada border. Additionally,
family visits will be allowed dur-
ing the conference finals and the
Stanley Cup finals in Edmonton.
For David Edward-Ooi Poon, a
physician in Toronto, those ex-
emptions are “a slap shot to the
face.” Since Canada shut its bor-
der to most foreigners in March,
Poon has been separated from his
longtime partner in Ireland, and
he co-founded a group that has
been pushing for family reunifica-
tion.
“Sports are such an important
part of the Canadian experience,
especially hockey,” said Poon,
whose group includes fathers sep-
arated from their newborns and
adult children separated from
their sick parents. “I understand
that.... If NHL players along with
their support staff and camera
crews are considered ‘essential,’
why isn’t family?”
The experience of watching
games amid the pandemic will
vary from place to place. In most
of Canada, bars and restaurants
are open. In others, fans are shutA poll this week from the Angus
Reid Institute found that more
than 70 percent of Canadian hock-
ey fans say they are “very excited”
or “pretty excited” for summer
hockey with the remainder of fans
expressing less enthusiasm for
the game’s return.
Dylan Odd, 30, who works on
Parliament Hill in Ottawa, said
he’s “very excited” for the return
of the game.
“It’s kind of an interesting
thing to reflect on, to think about
how well we’ve done,” Odd said.
“We’ve been able to get our coun-
try to a place where [it’s] safe to
take part in our national pastime.
It’s hard not to reflect on what’s
going on south of the border and
think how proud you are as Cana-
dian to see that we’ve done this
and we’ve achieved this.”
Ben Bath was cruising the
streets of Toronto after a dentist
appointment this week when he
noticed a bus carrying an NHL
team entering the underground
parking lot at Scotiabank Arena.
“That really piqued my interest
and got me excited,” said Bath, a
29-year-old urban planner and
Toronto Maple Leafs fan. “I al-
most felt like a little kid seeing a
movie star or something.”
Bath, who has played hockey
since he was 5 years old, said he is
“ecstatic” about the return of the
game. He participates in a fantasy
league with work colleagues and
recently bought a subscription
television package so he could
watch out-of-market games.
“It’s definitely weird having a
preseason game in July,” he said,
“but I’m so excited for it to be back
that I can get over the fact that
there’s going to be a Stanley Cup
awarded in September.”
Not everyone shares that en-
thusiasm. When the NHL was
considering Vancouver as one of
the two hub cities, British Colum-
bia officials would not bend on
their strict isolation and contact
tracing protocols, which might
have meant suspending part of a
series if a player, coach or other
team official tested positive for
the virus.
“Under no circumstances was I
going to compromise in any way
the health of people here in Brit-
ish Columbia,” Bonnie Henry, the
province’s top doctor, told report-
ers. “And we made that very clear.”HOCKEY FROM D1For Canadians, hosting NHL comeback is comforting
ANDRE RINGUETTE/FREESTYLE PHOTO/GETTY IMAGES
Canadians are proud that their pandemic response led to Toronto and Edmonton hosting the playoffs.While Brooks was encouraged
by Robinson’s performance and
Hachimura’s revival in the second
half, the Wizards’ path ahead only
grows thornier after this week-
end. The Suns were among their
more beatable opponents in Flor-
ida. After the Wizards face eighth-
place Brooklyn (30-35) on Sun-
day, they play Indiana, Philadel-
phia and New Orleans before
their schedule ramps up even
more with Oklahoma City, Mil-
waukee and Boston.
[email protected]team for its work on Suns star
Devin Booker. The guard scored a
game-high 27 points but made
only 8 of 21 shot attempts. Dean-
dre Ayton added 24 points for the
Suns (27-39).
“The effort was pretty good,”
Brooks said. “Their perimeter
guys, we made a lot of bad mis-
takes where we’re giving up
layups and opening up and giving
up angles to drives. Those are
things we have to improve on, we
have to get better at.”
The Wizards were out of
rhythm almost immediately.
Phoenix racked up a 17-point edge
at the free throw line in the first
half, and forward Rui Hachimura,
Washington’s most consistent
scoring option, played just over
10 minutes in the first half after
picking up two fouls early.
The Wizards trailed 67-52 at
halftime and never caught up
despite looking less hesitant and
shooting 51.3 percent from the
field in the second half.
“Phoenix did a good job of just
coming out and setting the tone,”
WIZARDS FROM D1 said Wizards guard Ish Smith,
one of the few veterans on the
roster in Florida. “I use it as the
analogy of two boxers each in
their own corner, and Phoenix
just got off the mat and met us
before we even got off the bench.
They did a good job of setting the
tone. They maintained that tone.”
Among the few bright spots of
the Wizards’ otherwise dreary
first game since March 10 was an
unexpected shining moment
from Jerome Robinson. Although
Hachimura bounced back well
after his early foul trouble and led
the team with 21 points and eight
rebounds, Robinson did yeoman’s
work early on trying to pick up
the first-half slack. He didn’t miss
all half, scoring 13 of his 20 points
before halftime.
Robinson finished one point
shy of his career high and 7 for 9
from the field, gliding into his
spots with confidence and keep-
ing the team afloat when it strug-
gled to create consistent offense.
Smith added 17 points, and Sha -
bazz Napier had 12.
“Shooters shoot,” Robinson said
afterward. “I was open, so I shot it.”
Wizards and their defensive woes return
WIZARDS’ NEXT THREEvs. B rooklyn NetsTomorrow 2NBCSWvs. Indiana PacersMonday4NBCSW+vs. Philadelphia 76 ersWednesday4NBCSW,
NBATVAll games at Kissimmee, Fla.
Radio: WFED (1500 AM)Suns 125, Wizards 112
Phoenix ............................... 3829223 6— 125
Washington ........................ 3121293 1— 112
PHOENIX MIN FG FT O-TAPFPTS
Bridges 33:39 4-8 4-6 0-3 3213
Johnson 24:46 5-8 1-1 1-3 2512
Ayton 34:52 11-14 0-0 3-12 3224
Booker 35:54 8-21 9-9 0-5 4427
Rubio 29:07 3-7 8-8 0-1 9415
Saric 27:14 4-6 6-6 0-6 3416
Carter 24:55 2-5 2-2 0-2 11 7
Payne 18:57 4-7 0-0 0-3 20 9
Kaminsky 10:35 1-4 0-0 0-2 22 2
TOTALS 240 42-8030-324-3729 24 125
P ercentages: FG .525, FT .938. 3 -Point Goals: 11-32, .344
(Ayton 2-3, Saric 2-3, Booker 2-7, Payne 1-2, Johnson
1-3, Rubio 1-3, Carter 1-4, Bridges 1-5, Kaminsky 0-2).
Team Rebounds: 9. Team Turnovers: 1. B locked Shots: 3
(Ayton 2, Payne). T urnovers: 17 (Booker 5, Saric 4, Rubio
3, Ayton, Bridges, Johnson, Kaminsky, Payne). S teals:
10 (Rubio 3, Payne 2, Booker, Bridges, Carter, Johnson,
Saric). T echnical Fouls: None..
WASHINGTON MIN FG FT O-TAPFPTS
Bonga 22:07 2-6 5-5 1-4 13 9
Hachimura 29:47 8-15 5-5 3-8 1221
Bryant 33:33 4-12 1-2 1-7 3210
Brown Jr. 26:33 6-11 3-3 1-1 1415
Napier 26:37 4-13 3-3 0-3 3212
Robinson 31:39 7-9 2-3 0-1 1320
Smith 26:56 8-18 0-0 0-4 7217
Wagner 14:27 1-3 0-0 1-3 03 2
Williams 12:36 0-0 1-2 1-2 02 1
Grant 10:08 2-2 0-0 0-1 11 5
Schofield 5:37 0-2 0-0 0-2 02 0
TOTALS 240 42-9120-238-3618 26 112
P ercentages: FG .462, FT .870. 3 -Point Goals: 8-22, .364
(Robinson 4-6, Grant 1-1, Smith 1-2, Bryant 1-4, Napier
1-5, Bonga 0-1, Schofield 0-1, Brown Jr. 0-2). T eam
Rebounds: 10. Team Turnovers: None. B locked Shots: 2
(Napier, Williams). T urnovers: 18 (Hachimura 5, Napier
4, Smith 3, Bonga 2, Robinson 2, Wagner 2). S teals: 7
(Bryant 2, Bonga, Brown Jr., Hachimura, Napier, Robin-
son). T echnical Fouls: None.