Stats, analysis, commentary.
The only important things from the Wizards loss to the Los Angeles Clippers were Bilal Coulibaly starting in place of Jordan Poole (non-COVID illness), playing 37 minutes with a usage rate of 19.9%, scoring 19 points (a career high), and picking James Harden’s pocket.
Was the kid great? Nah. Overall, he was basically average. But he competed well against all-timers like Kawhi Leonard, Harden, and Russell Westbrook. The Wizards will take NBA competence from a 19-year-old in just the second start of his career.
As for the rest of the game, here’s the summary: the Wizards stayed close through two quarters, got smoked in the third (-21 in the period), and staged one of those phony garbage time “comebacks” to cut the final margin to a respectable 16.
Keep in mind that the Clippers were missing Paul George and Ivica Zubac.
This & That
- Daniel Gafford had a decent game against LA’s fill-in center, Mason Plumlee. He shot just 2-5 from the floor, but grabbed four offensive boards, and blocked five shots — rare instances of Washington accomplishing something on the defensive end.
- Marvin Bagley III had another strong offensive outing — 10 point and 7 shots, 3 offensive boards, and a couple of assists. His defensive presence was nonexistent.
- In the first half, Kyle Kuzma seemed like he was on his way to a great game — 23 points on 15 shots, 2-4 from three-point range, 2 rebounds. In the second half, he could managed 4 points on 7 shots, had no rebounds, and committed 2 turnovers. For the game, he made little impact on defense and guzzled possessions at below average efficiency.
- Deni Avdija’s left hand is a problem. When he could get to his right, he made plays. Unfortunately, the Clippers kept forcing him left. He ended the game with a 103 offensive rating (points produced per possession x 100) on a 22.5% usage rate, and the team was -33 in his 26 minutes.
- Tyus Jones was awful — 4 points on 2-9 shooting, 0-3 from three, 7 assists, and an uncharacteristic three turnovers.
- The Clippers had active and amazingly accurate hands on the defensive end. Harden has been fairly maligned for his defense over the years, but he had two steals, four blocks, and a pair of deflections. Kawhi Leonard had four steals, a block, and a freakish nine deflections. The Wizards had nine deflections as a team.
- The Wizards have a brutal stretch of games on the way. So far this season, Washington’s opponents have been about 0.4 points per game below average (using strength of schedule adjusted scoring margin). That’s about the level of a 40-win team over an 82-game schedule. Over the next 15 games, their average opponent is +3.0 per game — the level of a 48-win team. The next time my prediction machine has the Wizards favored to win: March 8 at home against the Charlotte Hornets.
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).
Stats & Metrics
Below are a few performance metrics, including the Player Production Average (PPA) Game Score. 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).
Game Score (GmSC) converts individual production into points on the scoreboard. The scale is the same as points and reflects each player’s total contributions for the game. The lowest possible GmSC is zero.
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.
