Stats, analysis, commentary
Bub Carrington had the best game of his career (so far), and the Wizards lost to the Orlando Magic by 12.
Carrington’s night was special — 32 points, 9 rebounds, 7 assists, and just 1 turnover. He hit 12-18 from the floor and 7-10 from three-point range. He posted new career highs in points and threes and looked confident with step-backs and sidestep pull-up bombs.
His teammates couldn’t keep pace against a stout Orlando defense, and the Wizards lost by 12. The final margin feels weirdly close — the Magic seemed to be controlling the game but went through stretches where their offense sputtered and Washington would cut into the lead.
Bright Spots and Observations
- Carrington had an excellent night, as previously mentioned.
- Marcus Smart got the start and played a solid game. He scored 10 points on 4-5 shooting in the third quarter.
- Justin Champagnie was okay — 8 points on 6 shots, a steal and a block in 23 minutes. He had another dunk that showcased some explosiveness. It’s starting to like a Jeff Green kind of thing.
- AJ Johnson once again flashed his startling athleticism on a few plays. He also flashed his youth and inexperience on others. He needed 10 shots and three turnovers to score 11 points and produce two assists.
- Alex Sarr had a terrible game overall — 4-16 from the floor, 0-5 from three, 6 rebounds in 32 minutes. He also made some high level passes en route to six assists and three turnovers.
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.