{"id":3336,"date":"2025-11-11T00:34:56","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T00:34:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/?p=3336"},"modified":"2025-11-11T00:35:31","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T00:35:31","slug":"fourth-quarter-execution-costs-wizards-again-in-loss-to-mavericks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/11\/fourth-quarter-execution-costs-wizards-again-in-loss-to-mavericks\/","title":{"rendered":"Fourth Quarter Execution Costs Wizards Again in Loss to Mavericks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Wizards went toe-to-toe with the Dallas Mavericks for most of the night, but once again, the fourth quarter proved costly. Washington fell 111\u2013105 at Capital One Arena, undone by turnovers, missed shots, and defensive lapses in the final minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/09\/cj-mccollum-adds-steadying-presence-to-young-wizards-core\/\" title=\"\">Guard\u00a0CJ McCollum<\/a>\u00a0did everything he could to give the Wizards a cushion early. He scored\u00a023 points in the first half, the most by any Wizards player in a single half this season, and has now recorded\u00a020 or more in two straight opening halves, becoming the first Wizard to do that since Bradley Beal from Dec. 16\u201318, 2021. His scoring set the tone and kept Washington in front or within striking distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Wizards were also shorthanded, playing without\u00a0Bilal Coulibaly,\u00a0Kyshawn\u00a0George and\u00a0Khris Middleton, all out for this matchup. Even so, they stayed in the game until the closing stretch, when empty offensive trips and breakdowns on the defensive end opened the door for Dallas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Mavericks didn\u2019t ride one star to the finish.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/nba\/news\/mavericks-cooper-flagg-offense-starting-lineup\/\" title=\"\">No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg\u00a0<\/a>finished with\u00a012 points, but Dallas got contributions from multiple players down the stretch including Naji Williams who held it down more of the game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We asked\u00a0Alex Sarr\u00a0what it will take for this team to start finishing games, he talked about the need to lock in on defense and learn from previous games that have ended in 4th quarter meltdowns. Cam Whitmore\u00a0also emphasized the fourth quarter, saying the Wizards have to be more efficient late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It all points back to the same theme: this team can compete. They\u2019ve shown it in stretches. But until the Wizards solve their fourth-quarter execution issues, strong stretches won\u2019t turn into wins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Watch:<\/strong><br>Watch <strong>Inside Take: Onsite Analysis by Double Take Sports<\/strong> below for a full breakdown of the loss, including more from Alex Sarr and Cam Whitmore on what\u2019s going wrong late in games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-9-16 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Inside Take | #Wizards Struggle to Close vs. #mavericks\" width=\"563\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/J_1kCjAFMfc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington battled Dallas all night but couldn\u2019t close it out, falling 111\u2013105. Check out the recap and our Inside Take video for a full breakdown of the Wizards\u2019 fourth-quarter execution issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[70],"tags":[207,209,208,136,22],"class_list":["post-3336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wizards","tag-alex-sarr","tag-cam-whitmore","tag-cj-mccollum","tag-cooper-flagg","tag-washington-wizards"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/CamWhitmore-e1762821196165.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3337,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3336\/revisions\/3337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}