WASHINGTON — Bobby Portis had spent the entirety of his young NBA career with one team before he was traded Wednesday night, so the emotions he felt in the 48 hours that preceded his debut with the Washington Wizards were new, and they weren’t easy to process.

The forward out of Arkansas found out that Chicago had traded him 20 minutes before the Bulls took the court Wednesday. As he absorbed the news, his phone buzzed with 600 text messages, waves of well wishes and notes of encouragement that he hadn’t had gotten a chance to respond to by the time he arrived for shoot-around ahead of Washington’s 119-106 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday night at Capital One Arena.

To top of Portis’s sense of disquiet, he hadn’t played since last Saturday, so he was sure he would start to feel normal again as soon as he got back on the court.

Apparently, Washington’s newbie knows himself well. Portis scored a team-high 30 points on 12-for-17 shooting, including four 3s, and was handed the game ball Friday as the injured John Wall looked on from the bench.

In the wake of news that he will miss a about year after he has surgery Tuesday to repair his ruptured Achilles’ tendon, Wall seemed lighthearted as he shared the only message he had for Portis all night.

“I just told Bobby at halftime that he got 18, if you don’t finish with 30 – you’re a punk,” Wall said in the locker room after, rocking back and forth on a scooter supporting his left leg.

Before the game, Wall, Bradley Beal and team owner Ted Leonsis commemorated Beal’s second All-Star game appearance with a ceremony at center court. But during the game, it was Washington’s new players – Portis, Jabari Parker and on a smaller scale, Wesley Johnson – who took center stage.

If Portis was feeling any lingering discomfort by the time he checked into the game midway through the first quarter, it showed only for a moment, when he drove into a double-team and lost the ball on his first touch.

But after that, the 23-year-old made his first six field goal attempts, including two 3-pointers, to rattle off 16 points and help Washington take a 41-27 lead after 12 minutes that they never relinquished, although the Cavaliers came close to moving in front in the second half.

“He was a great pickup, and that’s an understatement,” Wizards coach Scott Brooks said. “Great pickup. I won’t expect him to have 30 every night, but I like how he plays. He knows how to play. He plays hard, he reads the game, the 17 shots, I can’t think of one that was like ‘Ugh, he should have passed it.’ And he’s 23.”

Washington led by 20 early in the third quarter before the Cavaliers hit four 3-pointers during an 18-3 run to cut the Wizards’ lead to five with 4:48 left in the period. Washington cranked the lead back to 10 briefly before a 3 from Marquese Chriss got Cleveland within five, then a breakaway layup from Collin Sexton got it within three points with 32 seconds left in the third.

The Wizards’ lead stayed in single digits until Portis nailed a 27-foot 3-pointer on a feed from Tomas Satoransky to make it 106-96 with 6:10 to play, all but closing the door on the Cavaliers. When Portis checked out toward the end of the fourth quarter, he exited to a hearty round of applause.

What Brooks liked most was Portis’s innate feel for the game. The 6-11 forward spent the night setting smart screens and showing off his range as he picked apart Cleveland’s defense.

“Sometimes you have to roll, sometimes you have to get to the pocket, sometimes you have to pop,” Brooks said. “And if you tell guys that, it’s too late. They have to react instinctively to be able to do that, and he has a knack for it.”

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