At the end of a grueling four-game West Coast road trip, and after having played two overtime bouts in their last four outings—all four of which were decided by single digits—Paul Pierce and the Washington Wizards just didn’t quite have enough energy in Phoenix to slow down a fast-paced Suns offense.

Washington fell behind by as many as 22 in the first half before being lifted back by The Truth in the third quarter, only to come up short in a tough 106-98 defeat.

Washington Wizards v Chicago Bulls

Paul finished with just nine points in the game, but eight of those came in a pivotal third quarter. The Wiz cut the deficit to five in the third and four in the fourth quarter, but as head coach Randy Wittman explained, their early struggles left them without enough in the tank to finish the race.

“We let our inefficiency from an offensive standpoint drain our energy in the first half,” Wittman said. “We can’t do that. We’re missing layups, missing some easy shots and it just kind of sucked the energy out of our group. We can’t let that affect us. And as it just proved, you stay with it and keep fighting, you’ve got to turn bad situations into good. In the first half we didn’t do that.”

In the first half, Washington was outscored 56-39, outshot .512 to .333 and outhustled by the Suns, who looked far more energetic than the Wizards team on its fourth road game and fourth city in five days.

The Truth, exasperated after watching his team fail to show up in the first half for the second night in a row, took over in the third quarter. Though his shot wasn’t falling and he had missed all five of his attempts from the field in the first half, he showed no hesitation in popping a three just a minute into the second half.

The next Wizards possession belonged to Paul again, who drove to the hoop, endured contact, missed the layup, but tipped in his own rebound to cut the deficit to 10.

The offense seemed to be clicking again when John Wall found Marcin Gortat for a dunk then Bradley Beal for a three, but after a pair of misses and some lackluster defense on the other end, Washington was still down 11.

Tired of watching the Wizards hoist up long jumpers, No. 34 again took the game into his own hands, slicing through the paint and drawing a second foul on Suns center Alex Len.

Washington Wizards v Orlando Magic

He split the free throws, then after a stop and a Beal three, Paul again brought out the killer instinct and got to the hoop for another layup, cutting the deficit to five. The Wizards had opened the third outscoring the Suns 18-6, with The Truth putting up eight points of his own.

However, a tough and-one drive by Phoenix guard Eric Bledsoe followed by a poor rebounding sequence by the Wizards jolted the Suns crowd and suddenly the home team had scored eight straight points to go up by 13 again.

The younger Wizards closed the gap to four on two occasions in the fourth quarter, but they just couldn’t quite power all the way back.

Wall praised the second unit for rallying in the second half to get the Wizards close again, but he and the starters took the blame for the loss. There will be off nights, the star point guard said Wednesday night, but you still have to play your game when those nights happen, and the Wizards didn’t do that in Phoenix.

“When you’re not making shots, you can still defend and do the little things and get to the free throw line, and we didn’t do that,” Wall said. “One thing we’ve got to do a better job of is, when we’re not making shots, attack the basket a little easier and get to the paint.”

NEXT UP

Paul and the Wizards (31-16) will get two much-needed days of rest before taking the court once again at home for an ever-important meeting with the Toronto Raptors (31-15) on Saturday evening.

The Raptors, currently a half-game ahead of Washington for second place in the Eastern Conference standings, have a road game against the Brooklyn Nets on Friday, and will be playing in D.C. 24 hours later.

The Wizards, who have been on the road all week and looked sluggish in their past two games, will hope to take advantage of the Raptors’ travel woes themselves and regain their hold on second place.

Saturday marks just the second time the teams will meet this season, with the third and final round coming less than two weeks later in Toronto.

In the first round, the Raptors manhandled the Wizards, winning 103-84 at Air Canada Centre. In that game, Washington couldn’t get a shot to fall, shooting just 36.1 percent from the floor and missing 11 of their 32 free throws. Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry also got the best of Wall, finishing with a triple double while Wall had just eight points and seven assists.

No. 34 had eight points and eight boards, as well as an assist, in that game, but he played just 23 minutes as the game quickly turned into a blowout.

Round No. 2 will be played at 7 p.m. ET and will be shown locally on Comcast Sports Net.

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