Stats, commentary, analysis
Well that was weird. The Wizards traveled north to face the New York Knicks on the second night of a back-to-back, and for the first 28 minutes took exactly the sort of kick-in-the-teeth beating to be expected when the league’s worst team takes on one of the best.
In the first half, Washington managed just 41 points and trailed by 25. New York opened the third quarter with a burst, ran their lead to 33 and seemed on their way to the kind of massive win that gets all five starters an opportunity to rest the entire fourth quarter.
And then…Washington went on an epic 42-13 run to slash New York’s lead to just four. And suddenly it looked like an actual game.
Then, just as quickly, the magic ended. Marcus Smart, Richaun Holmes, and the bench mob that powered the comeback ran out of gas, the starters rotated back onto the floor, and the Knicks pulled away to finish of a comfortable 122-103 win.
Bright Spots for the Wizards?
- For 24 minutes, Marcus Smart was The Man — 17 points, 4-7 from three, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and a block. Somehow, the Wizards were “only” +3 during his minutes — the way he controlled the action, it felt like it should’ve been a lot more.
- Colby Jones made the most of his 12 minutes, hitting all three of his field goal attempts, and producing 4 rebounds, 2 assist, and 2 steals.
- Kyshawn George had nice counting stats (if we ignore the shooting and turnovers) — 15 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals. I don’t think he played badly, but it’s fair to describe his performance as sloppy and uneven — 4 turnovers, 4 fouls, 5-13 from the floor, and 1-4 from deep. He had little success defending OG Anunoby or Mikal Bridges.
- After a string of DNP-CDs, Richaun Holmes emerged from the mothballs for another physical, high-energy performance. He finished with 4 points and 7 rebounds in 17 minutes. The Wizards were +8 when he was on the floor. Only Jones had a better +/- (+12).
- With the loss, the Wizards maintain a half-game lead over the Utah Jazz for NBA’s worst record this season. This does not affect their chances of landing the number one overall pick in the draft, but finishing last would give them the best worst-case scenario.
- Bright spot for me: what a treat it was to hear a game called by Knicks broadcasters Mike Breen and Walt Frazier. Two of the absolute best in the business.
Four Factors
Below are the four factors that decide wins and losses in basketball — shooting (efg), rebounding (offensive rebounds), ball handling (turnovers), fouling (free throws made).
The four factors are measured by:
- eFG% (effective field goal percentage, which accounts for the three-point shot)
- OREB% (offensive rebound percentage)
- TOV% (turnover percentage — turnovers divided by possessions)
- FTM/FGA (free throws made divided by field goal attempts)
In the table below are the four factors using the percentages and rates traditionally presented. There’s also a column showing league average in each of the categories to give a sense of each team’s performance relative to the rest of the league this season.
Stats & Metrics
Below are a few performance metrics. PPA is my overall production metric, which credits players for things they do that help a team win (scoring, rebounding, playmaking, defending) and dings them for things that hurt (missed shots, turnovers, bad defense, fouls).
PPA is a per possession metric designed for larger data sets. In small sample sizes, the numbers can get weird. In PPA, 100 is average, higher is better and replacement level is 45. For a single game, replacement level isn’t much use, and I reiterate the caution about small samples sometimes producing weird results.
POSS is the number of possessions each player was on the floor in this game.
ORTG = offensive rating, which is points produced per individual possessions x 100. League average last season was 114.8. Points produced is not the same as points scored. It includes the value of assists and offensive rebounds, as well as sharing credit when receiving an assist.
USG = offensive usage rate. Average is 20%.
ORTG and USG are versions of stats created by former Wizards assistant coach Dean Oliver and modified by me. ORTG is an efficiency measure that accounts for the value of shooting, offensive rebounds, assists and turnovers. USG includes shooting from the floor and free throw line, offensive rebounds, assists and turnovers.
+PTS = “Plus Points” is a measure of the points gained or lost by each player based on their efficiency in this game compared to league average efficiency on the same number of possessions. A player with an offensive rating (points produced per possession x 100) of 100 who uses 20 possessions would produce 20 points. If the league average efficiency is 114, the league — on average — would produced 22.8 points in the same 20 possessions. So, the player in this hypothetical would have a +PTS score of -2.8.
Players are sorted by total production in the game.