Don’t expect to see Bradley Beal or Russell Westbrook in Wizards’ preseason opener

Such are the realities of a condensed schedule amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Beal, Westbrook and Bertans are healthy, but Coach Scott Brooks probably will hold them out of Sunday’s exhibition to provide a slower on-ramp to the season. Although Brooks has been pleasantly surprised by the level of conditioning he has seen from his roster, NBA teams missed out on the month-long ramp-up of workouts that players normally get before training camp.

A lingering shoulder injury kept Beal out of the bubble, and he hasn’t played an NBA game since March. Westbrook did compete in the bubble — he arrived late after he tested positive for the coronavirus — but he was held out of the start of the playoffs with a quadriceps strain. The Wizards don’t want to rush either back onto the court.

“We want to keep getting them more reps and more gamelike practices before we throw them in a game,” Brooks said. “It was quick. They were two guys that did not play any five-on-five prior to this, then we slowly ramped it up. They will probably play the next game, and it gives us another three or four more days to get their conditioning. It’s good right now but can always be better with a couple more days.”

Bertans’s preparation schedule is also lagging after the Latvian forward arrived to camp late because of visa issues; he participated in his first practice Saturday. Smith, the backup point guard, will not play Sunday because of lower-body soreness that Brooks expects to fade “any day,” and starting center Thomas Bryant probably will not play after banging his hip. He did not practice Saturday.

For those who are healthy and being held out of Sunday’s game, this season presents a new challenge: finding the right balance between allowing your body enough time to acclimate and making sure you get enough time on the court to find chemistry and flow.

Washington’s season opener is Dec. 23 at Philadelphia, and it has just three preseason games to prepare. After Sunday’s road trip, the Wizards host the Detroit Pistons on Thursday and Saturday. Calculating the right amount of preparation requires steady communication among the Wizards’ coaches, the players in question, the medical staff and the team’s sports scientists.

“I want to be able to get some time in any of these games to be able to get a good rhythm, get a good flow,” Beal said Friday. “I definitely feel like in practice I’m getting it, too, but I think just the length in between games is our judgment call on it. We have a lot of time between.”

With several of their key players out, the Wizards expect to get good long looks at their newcomers and less experienced players vying for Washington’s open wing slot in the starting lineup. Brooks said this week that a handful of players, including No. 9 draft pick Deni Avdija, Troy Brown Jr., Jerome Robinson and Isaac Bonga, are competing for those minutes.

With just a week of training camp to install sets and have his team practice as a group, Brooks will be watching his young players more for decision-making fundamentals than perfect execution.

“We definitely want to have good ball movement. Things that we’ve done the last year or so, we want to continue that. And then pick up the defensive reads quickly,” Brooks said. “There’s going to be a lot of good minutes to be had, and guys are going to get good opportunities. It’s a player’s dream to go in there and get a lot of minutes, and some guys are going to get a lot of minutes that showcase what they can bring to our team, whether being a starter or a guy coming off the bench or a guy that can even make our team.”