On the court, Westbrook was encouraging. Alone, he needed what appeared to be a pep talk from assistant coach Robert Pack, whom he had worked with when Pack was on Wizards Coach Scott Brooks’s staff in Oklahoma City years ago.

Of Washington’s four losses to open the season, this, to a struggling Bulls squad, was the hardest to stomach. Brooks likened the losses to a game of whack-a-mole, with a new problem cropping up just as one is solved. Bradley Beal, already reticent to explain yet another loss when he spoke to reporters Sunday, did not hold a postgame news conference Tuesday.

Through the three losses that opened their season, the Wizards took solace in two things: They played well for the first three quarters in each of those games, and their opponents were playoff-caliber teams. Faltering under pressure from Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid in the fourth quarter of the season opener on the road is understandable. Flourishing through three quarters of a rematch with Orlando reinforced the thought that Washington’s issues might have quick fixes.

The Bulls stripped the Wizards of those consolations Tuesday night. Two winless teams entered and, 48 ugly minutes later, only one remained. Washington (0-4) will get another chance to tally its first win Thursday when the Bulls (1-3) return.

“It’s a tough time, but you’ve got to figure it out, you know? Especially for myself,” Westbrook said. “I really, really hate losing. So it’s tough for me to kind of reset. But being a leader, you can’t lead when things are just going well. You have to lead when things are not going your way. We’ve got a group of guys here that want to win, that are trying to do the right things, and leadership is being able to figure it out.”

Beal and Westbrook again turned in impressive performances that couldn’t tilt the outcome. Westbrook notched his third triple-double in the three games he has played in a Wizards uniform, scoring 21 points, pulling down a game-high 15 rebounds and dishing 11 assists. Beal led all scorers with 29 points and added four rebounds, three assists and two steals.

Their individual highlights added up to little more than pleasing stat lines.

“It’s hard; it’s definitely difficult,” Brooks said. “You think you’ve got one thing, and it’s like that cartoon — you plug the guy in one spot and something else comes up. We’re going to keep working, putting some things together — rotations, we’re going to try to change it up a little bit. . . . [General Manager Tommy Sheppard] has given us a good group to work with. We will get better, and we will figure it out.”

The Wizards’ issues that had been contained to the fourth quarter were present throughout the game Tuesday: Washington struggled to keep Chicago from scoring in spurts, settled for inefficient shots and gave away 23 points on 19 turnovers. Chicago built a 13-point lead during the Wizards’ dismal third quarter, when they had six turnovers and allowed Zach LaVine to rack up nine points.

The Wizards trailed by just eight midway through the quarter when Beal was hit in the face during a collision with Westbrook. Beal appeared dazed when he finally stood but made two free throws before heading off the court for a brief stint in the locker room.

Washington held steady during his nearly three-minute absence, and Beal chipped in four points after he returned. But the Wizards’ intermittent buckets could not stand up to Chicago’s scoring in bunches. Beal had 12 points in the quarter and Washington shot 50 percent, but the Bulls’ extra pair of three-pointers and their momentum made all the difference heading into the fourth.

With Beal sitting at the start of the final period, the Wizards didn’t score for nearly three minutes until Davis Bertans finally hit a deep three-pointer after starting his night 1 for 5 from beyond the arc. The forward went 3 for 3 in the final period, including a pair of three-pointers, to reach 20 points, but it was far too little, much too late.

LaVine led seven Bulls players in double figures with 23 points, but Chicago’s scoring came from all over the roster. Like three ghosts of Washington’s past, Otto Porter Jr. (16), Garrett Temple (12) and Tomas Satoransky (10) combined for 38 points off the bench.

“We had trouble staying in front of the ball, and then we were over-helping,” Brooks said. “I thought we got beat on some very average moves . . . and we gave up open threes. We have to do a better job of that. . . . There was a stretch of the game we could not hit a shot — I mean, we were getting really wide-open threes and we did not come away with anything.”

Even with Chicago shooting just fine — 43.7 percent for the night — it dominated the fourth quarter, as all of the Wizards’ opponents have so far.