Wizards Lose by 21 to the Hawks. It Wasn’t That Close.

The highlight of last night’s Wizards loss to the Atlanta Hawks was almost certainly the singing of the National Anthem by the Chamblee High School Mixed Chorus and River Ridge High School Junior ROTC. Catch it on a replay, if you can. Those kids did great.

The game itself had me doing mental math figuring out how many more of these I have to watch this season. Because ugh.

If you time-shifted this one to the morning, I’d recommend just firing it into the sun. In the first minute, I’d jotted “sloppy” in my notes. A few seconds later, I wrote, “SLOPPY.”

The Wizards committed turnovers on each of their first five possessions. They were disorganized and discombobulated. They were getting pummeled on the glass. When they finally did start getting shots up, they were inaccurate, and the shot selection was…well…crummy.

There were some moments of hopeful basketball. Bilal Coulibaly made a couple strong drives on consecutive possessions for a potential and-one (he missed the free throw) and a dunk. Dyson Daniels, who was first team All-Defense last season, had trouble staying in front of him. At least on those possessions.

The second of those possessions came with 8:33 to go in the first quarter. The game degenerated from there.

Before Atlanta began The Slacking Off, they built a 38-point lead. Washington’s bench mob staged something of a “comeback” to cut the final margin to a semi-respectable 21 points. The game was not even that competitive.

For the record, I double-checked my in-game mental math, which turned out to be correct. The Wizards have 25 games left in the season.

Thoughts & Observations

• Atlanta’s broadcast had the cinematic camera first used (at least in the NBA) by the Toronto Raptors. It blurs the background on player closeups and a few other shots and looks epic. Kudos to the Hawks for adding it.
• Here are Washington’s offensive ratings (points per possession x 100) by quarter:
  • First: 74
  • Second: 85
  • Third: 72
  • Fourth: 155
• The fourth quarter output was more a result of Atlanta defensive indifference than Washington offensive excellence. Kudos to the Wizards for making the shots, I guess.
• Neither team played well on the offensive end. Washington’s 91 offensive rating was their fourth worst of the season. Atlanta’s 110 ortg was more than five points per 100 possessions below average…against one of the NBA’s worst defensive teams.
• Given the number of possessions (108 for each team) an average NBA game would have produced 249 points. The Wizards and Hawks combined for 217.
• All complaining aside, Coulibaly had a pretty decent game despite shooting 3-9. In 24 minutes, he had 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, and 4 blocks.
• If you’re looking for positives, focus on clips involving Will Riley (7-8 shooting) or Justin Champagnie (5-8) or Jamir Watkins (6-8).
• Watkins, by the way, got hit with a well-deserved technical for flopping.
• Jonathan Kumgina looked great in his Hawks debut. In 24 minutes, he had 27 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists and hit 3-4 from three-point range.

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)

Stats & 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 so far this season is listed in the Four Factors table above. 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 115, the league — on average — would produced 23.0 points in the same 20 possessions. So, the player in this hypothetical would have a +PTS score of -3.0.

Players are sorted by total production in the game.