AJ Dybantsa's Debut Delivered. The Wizards' Second Half Did Not.

For four games, the Washington Wizards' season opener against Milwaukee was the loudest thing on the schedule — a 128-116 win in which Anthony Davis announced himself with 34 points and 12 rebounds. Then came three losses in four tries, and a different kind of anticipation built: waiting on the No. 1 overall pick.

AJ Dybantsa finally checked in on Wednesday in Cleveland, and the 19-year-old gave Washington exactly what it wanted. In 27 minutes on a stated minutes restriction, the BYU product scored a team-high 19 points on 8-of-12 shooting with a pair of assists. Brian Keefe put him in the starting lineup next to Trae Young and Davis, and he didn't look like a rookie catching up to the speed of the league — he looked like the reason the Wizards spent a season chasing the top of the lottery.

The problem is what surrounded those 27 minutes.

Washington led by 10 at halftime at Rocket Arena and lost 121-111, meaning the Wizards were outscored by 20 across the second half. Davis finished with 18 points on 8-of-18 from the floor; Young had 14 on 3-of-12 with four turnovers. The two established All-Stars — each averaging 22 points coming into the night — combined to shoot 11-of-30. Cleveland's defense tightened, and the Wizards had no counter.

That's the tension of this whole season in one game. Davis (18, 29 and 19 points across his last three) and Young (double-digit assists in three of five) are good enough to make Washington competitive most nights. The Wizards are 2-3 but only minus-2.2 points per game, and their net rating of minus-5.3 sits 18th in the league — firmly in the mushy middle rather than the basement. A points-based power rating has them 27th at minus-10.14, which is still a real jump from minus-15.22 a season ago.

The question is whether the supporting structure catches up to the stars. Spacing has been a talking point since October, and the second-half collapse in Cleveland was a spacing problem as much as a shooting one: when Young and Davis are blunted, there's no third engine. Dybantsa may become that engine — his debut hints he's the franchise anchor the team hoped Alex Sarr would be — but a 19-year-old on a minutes restriction can't be the answer in every fourth quarter yet.

The other leak is on the glass and on defense. Washington gives up 115.8 points per game. In the Oct. 26 loss at Charlotte, Moussa Diabate grabbed 11 offensive rebounds — a career high — and Brandon Miller scored from everywhere. Both of those problems land at Capital One Arena on Friday when the Hornets (3-2) visit for the rematch. Charlotte beat the Wizards 110-103 at home half a week ago, and Washington gets an immediate referendum on the rebounding issue.

There's also a minutes question worth tracking. Keefe wouldn't specify Dybantsa's restriction, and the forward hadn't played since spraining his left ankle in the preseason. As that leash lengthens, the Wizards get closer to their real rotation — and closer to finding out whether a team built around two veteran scorers and a teenager can defend and rebound well enough to stay out of the play-in scrum.

The debut was the good news. The 20-point second half was the warning. Washington gets its first home look at both on Friday.