Recap: Wizards sting Hornets, 113-110. Plus: The Numbers Crunch

In a game that was competitive, sloppy and wildly entertaining, the Washington Wizards squeaked past the Charlotte Hornets, 113-110, for their fifth win of the season.

The win will pull Washington out of the NBA cellar, at least temporarily. Wizards’ record rises to 5-23. With their loss to Houston Rocketsdropped the New Orleans Pelicans to 5-26.

Washington emerged victorious despite being outmatched and turned back by Charlotte. They did it by avoiding turnovers (the Hornets had 18 to Washington’s 11) and getting to the free throw line (21-11 advantage).

The Wizards got positive contributions from all sectors of the roster — starters and bench, young, old and in between. Charlotte got little from her bench and saw disastrous stints from a few.

Bright spots for the wizards?

• Jordan Poole hit a massive stepback three late to put the Wizards in position to win. Kudos to Poole for getting through the second half after taking a hard knee to the hip at the end of the first half. He finished with 25 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, a steal and 2 blocks. His shooting wasn’t great (eFG% of just 50.0%), but his overall offensive efficiency was strong: 117 offensive rating (average is 113.1) on 26.6% usage.
• Jonas Valanciunas was too much off the bench for the Hornets’ big men to handle. He finished with 14 points on 8 shots, as well as 12 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals.
• Alex Sarr hit threes (3-6), contributed three blocks and had a critical tip-in in the final seconds to secure the win.
• Bilal Coulibaly struggled with his shooting all night. In the second half, Charlotte put a center on him and dared him to shoot. While he rejected some wide-open looks, he didn’t stay passive – he attacked the paint and tried to create something. The results: 20 points on 6-16 shooting, 8 trips to the free throw line, 6 rebounds, 5 assists and just 1 turnover. He also defended well without mistakes. A solid game with good process.
• Justin Champagnie (the team leader in my PPA metrics for the season when I ran an update before last night’s game) scored 8 points on 4 shots, grabbed 6 rebounds and had a steal and two blocks in 13 minutes.
• Bub Carrington overcame a disastrous first half (10 minutes and zeroes in every category, except for 3 fouls) to make a few positive plays in the second half. This wasn’t a good game for him, but the competitiveness that the Wizards liked so much about him was evident.

Wizards head coach Brian Keefe got the Wizards back to essentially an eight-man rotation. Champagnie started each half but only played 13 minutes. The core rotation consisted of the elders, Valanciunas and Malcolm Brogdon, the middle-aged (by NBA standards) Poole and Corey Kispert, and the youngsters: Coulibaly, Sarr, Carrington and Kyshawn George. Almost 45% of the team’s minutes went to these youngsters – each of whom was 20 years old or younger.

Four factors

Below are the four factors that determine wins and losses in basketball – shooting (efg), rebounding (offensive rebounds), ball handling (turnovers), fouling (free throws made).

Statistics and measurements

Below are a few performance metrics, including 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, rebounds, playmaking, defense) and gives them credit for things that hurt (missed shots, turnovers, poor defense, error).

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 datasets. In small sample sizes, the numbers can get weird. In the PPA, 100 is the average, higher is better, and the replacement level is 45. For a single game, the replacement level is not very useful, and I reiterate the caution around small samples that sometimes produce strange results.

POS is the number of possessions each player was on the floor in this game.

ORG = offensive rating, which is points produced per individual possessions x 100. The league average last season was 114.8. Points produced are not the same as points scored. That includes the value of assists and offensive rebounds, as well as sharing credit when you receive an assist.

USG = offensive consumption rate. The 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 takes into account the value of shooting, offensive rebounds, assists and turnovers. USG includes shooting from the floor and the free throw line, offensive rebounds, assists and turnovers.

+PTS = “Plus Points” is a measure of the points each player has gained or lost based on their efficiency in this game compared to the 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 would – on average – produce 22.8 points in the same 20 possessions. So the player in this hypothetical will have a +PTS score of -2.8.