Shaedon Sharpe scored a career-high 36 points off the bench to fuel the visiting Portland Trail Blazers to a 129-121 victory over the Washington Wizards on Wednesday.
Sharpe made 13 of 26 shots from the floor, highlighted by a dunk of the year candidate that was the talk of social media. He intercepted an attempted outlet pass by Justin Champagnie and capped the sequence with a monstrous one-handed dunk to give Portland a 38-33 lead early in the second quarter.
Sharpe also had eight rebounds and five assists to propel the Trail Blazers to their third straight win.
Portland’s Scoot Henderson sank four 3-pointers to join Anfernee Simons with 16 points. Jerami Grant scored 15 points for the Trail Blazers, who enjoyed a 62-42 edge in points in the paint and a 17-7 advantage in offensive rebounds.
The Wizards’ Jordan Poole scored 24 points and Corey Kispert sank five 3-pointers to highlight his 20-point performance. Richaun Holmes also had 20 points for Washington, which lost for the seventh time in eight games.
Poole made a pair of layups to trim Portland’s lead to 117-114 with 2:28 remaining in the fourth quarter before Sharpe responded with an offensive rebound and putback. Toumani Camara then sank two free throws before Marcus Smart countered with a 3-pointer. He was, however, whistled for a technical foul for jawing with the officials. Simons made the free throw and Sharpe added two more to clinch his career-high point total and effectively seal the win.
Henderson sank three 3-pointers in just under three minutes and Simons and Kris Murray also connected from beyond the arc to stake Portland to a 94-86 advantage with 26.2 seconds left in the third quarter. Smart ended the Trail Blazers’ 9-0 run with a layup.
Portland’s Deni Avdija scored five points against his former team before exiting with a left quad injury. He was ruled out for the remainder of the game at the beginning of the second half.
–Field Level Media
