When Kelly Oubre Jr. checked into Game 3 for the first time, he felt the energy pulsing on the court. His Washington Wizards teammates had already determined to play with abandon, and their play — the early physical confrontation sparked by Markieff Morris and offensive takeover from John Wall and Bradley Beal in the backcourt — reflected the seriousness of the moment. Then Oubre came along and started an individual rampage against the Toronto Raptors.
Oubre hounded one of their all-star guards, convulsed on the hardwood after drawing an offensive foul and even slapped a defenseless basketball stanchion.
“Just emotions,” Otto Porter Jr. said after watching his young teammate. “That’s what we need from him. We need him to be Kelly Oubre. That’s who he is.”
The Wizards earned a 122-103 win in Game 3 of their first-round playoff series Friday because of a series of adjustments — Toronto still attempted plenty of three-pointers, but Washington defenders played more disciplined by limiting damage from the bench. One of the more important, if subtle, shifts came from Oubre.
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Throughout his 26 minutes, Oubre sparked life all over the court in making 5 of 9 shots and scoring 12 points. Nothing quite topped his opening salvo in the first quarter, when he raced down court, saved a loose ball and hammered home a lefty slam. Oubre celebrated by smacking the padding underneath the rim and sparking the fans inside Capital One Arena, as well as the players on the Wizards’ bench, to their feet.
“It’s my job to bring energy and get stops on the defensive end. My strengths are getting out in transition and running the floor, getting easy buckets, and the crowd likes that, too,” Oubre said. “So it gets the crowd involved. They feel your energy. I just wanted everybody to feel my energy when I’m on the court.”
Oubre displayed even more passion on the defensive end. He rejoiced in drawing a turnover against Toronto center Jakob Poeltl in the first quarter but remained a bit more buttoned-up while bottling up Toronto guard DeMar DeRozan. DeRozan made 10 of 22 shots for a team-best 23 points, but when matched against Oubre he hit only 1 of 6 attempts. Even the single shot DeRozan made was described as one of Oubre’s “best defensive possessions of the year” by Wizards Coach Scott Brooks.
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“DeRozan just made one of those tough, tough shots that just crawls into the basket,” Brooks said. “[Oubre] has to be a defender. You get rewarded by playing with effort. You get rewarded by awareness. You get rewarded by playing into the schemes and staying with the game plan. Sometimes the game rewards you with open shots, and he made his open shots [Friday]. He was good on both ends of the floor.”
Oubre matched up only once with C.J. Miles, the Wizards slayer in Games 1 and 2 who comes off the bench to launch threes. In Game 3, Oubre and others made sure to disrupt Miles’s rhythm. As a result, Miles made 1 of 5 attempts from deep and the Raptors were 22 points worse than the Wizards during his 23 minutes on the court. For the first time in the series, no Raptors bench player reached double figures.
“Touch him. At all times,” Oubre said, explaining the tactic used against Miles. “There shouldn’t be a time when somebody’s not touching him, and we’re locking and trailing on all his threes and making sure we’re right there on all his screens because he’s a lot of the pieces that kicked our [tail] for the past two games. … He’s definitely high on our scouting report.”
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In Sunday’s Game 4, the Wizards will need to create another lively atmosphere. But if the energy isn’t there by the time Oubre comes into the game, he’ll know what to do.
“When everybody brings their personality, then we’re really good,” Oubre said. “My job is — if the game is lacking energy, I bring it up. But [Friday] it was there from the start. It wasn’t something new when I got into the game, so the starters did a great job.
“I just definitely go out there and just play 110 percent every time I step onto the court,” Oubre continued, “because that’s just my motto.”
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