Wizards SG Beal sidelined at least 2 weeks with leg injury

The Dallas Mavericks look to continue their dominance in the series when they host the struggling Washington Wizards on Saturday.

The Washington Wizards hope to keep it close when they hit the road to face the Dallas Mavericks tonight at 8:30PM ET. They’ve lost two straight at home.

Washington Wizards guard Bradley Beal will miss at least two weeks after being diagnosed with the beginnings of a stress reaction in his lower right fibula. Beal is the team’s second-leading scorer with 19.8 points per game.

Washington entered Saturday with a 9-12 record and in last place in the Southeast Division.

“I blame myself”, coach Rick Carlisle said. “Everybody has to step up”. He made 10-of-17 shots, including 6-of-11 baskets from 3-point territory.

“I’m honestly exhausted of talking about it”, said Wesley Matthews, whose 28-point performance was wasted. Matthews hit 10 3s last Sunday in Dallas’ 116-104 win in Washington.

“It’s something we have to figure out, something that we have to figure out pretty quickly”, Wall said.

Beal’s condition will make things hard for the Wizards because they have a lot of quality teams to compete against in their attempt to climb back up the standings. “We didn’t execute as well as we needed to defensively and they made us pay for it”. Matthews is averaging 21 points in his last three games while fellow perimeter threat Deron Williams scored 20.2 per contest over the last five.

The Mavericks split their point guard minutes among Raymond Felton, Barea and Devin Harris.

A week after jumping all over the Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat on the road, the Wizards fell 13 points behind Houston in the first quarter at the Verizon Center.

“We were the ones that had two days off”, said Nowitzki, whose defensive work on Otto was singled out by Wizards coach Randy Wittman and center Marcin Gortat in their postgame comments. “He’s really taken ownership of this team”.

Washington opened up 7 of 9 from the field as all of the starters chipped in with points four minutes into the game.

“Don’t let him touch it”, said the Wizards’ Jared Dudley, who defended Nowitzki for most of the night.