Stats, commentary, analysis.
The Washington Wizards ran their record to 11-48 with a victory against the Charlotte Hornets. With the win, Washington cemented a season sweep of the four-game regular season series between the two teams. The Wizards previously beat Charlotte on Dec. 19, Dec. 26, and Feb. 3.
Washington still has the NBA’s worst record and worst scoring margin. Charlotte is second to last in both. It’s theoretically possible the Hornets could try to chase down the Wizards to finish out the year as the king bottom feeder, but it’s unlikely they could overcome Washington’s three-game advantage with just 23 games remaining on the schedule.
To secure the win, the Wizards got contributions from across the roster — youngsters and veterans, starters and bench. Washington led by as much as 16 in the fourth quarter and nearly held the Hornets below 100 points. Charlotte got to the century mark with a garbage time dunk by big man Mark Williams.
While Charlotte’s 29th ranked offense helped with miscues and wide-open misses, the Wizards defended effectively, especially in the second half where they limited the Hornets to just 41 points. Washington’s 102 defensive rating (points allowed per possession x 100) was their second best of the season so far.
The Wizards also did a pretty good job keeping Charlotte off the offensive glass. While the Hornets are the NBA’s worst shooting team, they’re sixth best in offensive rebounding. Against Washington, their offensive rebound percentage was 23.4% — well below their season average.
Bright Spots for the Wizards?
- Justin Champagnie played yet another outstanding game for Washington — 10 points on just 6 shots, 8 rebounds (including 3 offensive), 2 steals and 3 blocks in just 22 minutes. Give that kid a contract!
- Richaun Holmes put in quality work — 15 points on only 6 shots, 9 rebounds, 3 assists and a steal in just 22 minutes. He’s making the most of his post-trade deadline opportunity to get minutes by giving maximal effort at all times. He’s played well and will be a free agent prize for a team seeking backup center help this offseason…if he becomes a free agent.
- Khris Middleton had a productive “Old Man at the Y” game — an efficient 17 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists in 24 minutes.
- Corey Kispert, who I’ve often noted provides little beyond three-point shooting, shot well (5-8 from the floor and 3-6 from deep) and contributed 5 rebounds, 4 assists, and solid defense in 25 minutes.
- Bub Carrington hit 3-8 from three-point range, and played a solid all-around game — 5 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, zero turnovers. Nice work from the teen-ager.
- My favorite number of the night was Bilal Coulibaly getting 18 field goal attempts. The efficiency wasn’t there — he made just 6, including 3-11 from three — but it’s encouraging to see him maintain his offensive aggressiveness even when his shot wasn’t falling.
- Kyshawn George led all players in the game with 8 assists.
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.