The Washington Wizards went to Indianapolis and got vanquished by the defending Eastern Conference Champion Indiana Pacers, 119-86.
Okay, that leaves a few details out, but I was feeling inspired by forcing myself to go the distance with the Monumental broadcast.
Wizards center Alex Sarr against the Indiana Pacers. Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images
Okay, that last part isn’t exactly true. I cut over the Pacers broadcast a few times, and…well…let me just say I don’t think it’s asking too much for the analyst to pay attention to what’s happening on the court. I hereby officially advance the Monumental broadcast from 30th to 29th in my rankings.
So, yeah I know the Pacers entered the night with a 2-16 record and the league’s worst winning percentage. Yes, worst as in, even worse than Washington’s, hard as that is to believe. Yes, I know the Pacers were missing their best player.
And the Wizards got beat so bad, the most entertaining part of the evening was Red Panda at halftime.
I should probably write about basketball now. The Wizards were in touch through the first 18 minutes of the first half. The Pacers opened a 12-point lead at the half. Things avalanched from there.
I wanted to write something positive about the team’s defense, and they did have 10-12 good defensive possessions (out of 97 total). But it’s tough to get too excited when they gave up a 122 offensive rating to the league’s 29th ranked offense. That efficiency was +15 relative to the Pacers’ average this season, and +7 relative to league average.
In plain language, Washington’s defense was poor.
If you want to hear someone praise the Wizards defense, check out the Monumental broadcast with about four minutes remaining in the third quarter. Drew Gooden became abruptly ebullient about the Wizards defense “being on a string” for a possession and saying how much he loved it.
I would have called his praise “inexplicable,” except that a few minutes previous, Gooden performed genuine analysis of the poor job Wizards defenders were doing on Paschal Siakam. That analysis included correctly criticizing Bilal Coulibaly for ball watching.
- Alex Sarr played a subpar game by his standards this season and was the only Wizards player to post an above average PPA.
- Sarr’s offensive rating (individual points produced per possession x 100) was an abysmal 103 — more than 12 points below league average. Not only was that the best mark for any Wizards player last night, he was also the only Wizards player to crack 100.
- Man did the Wizards blow out when they let Jay Huff leave. Boy did I blow it when I was fine with his departure.
- It was fun to see Taelon Peter get a few minutes. I hadn’t heard of Peter before the Pacers drafted him in the second round. When I ran the 23-year-old guard, who last attended Liberty, through my stat-based draft prospect analysis tool (YODA), he had a late first round grade.
- Indiana’s NBA Cup floor looked great. Thoroughly enjoyable watch.
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)
FOUR FACTORS
WIZARDS
PACERS
LGAVG
eFG%44.0%59.2%54.3%OREB%20.0%24.4%26.5%TOV%17.5%11.3%13.1%FTM/FGA0.1570.1090.223PACE97100.2ORTG88122115.6
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 115.1. 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.
WIZARDS
MIN
POSS
ORTG
USG
+PTS
PPA
+/-
Alex Sarr336610331.2%-2.6108-14CJ McCollum30609217.4%-2.557-20Khris Middleton26529625.4%-2.657-11Bub Carrington27549115.6%-2.053-23Will Riley10209821.3%-0.791-6Cam Whitmore16329725.3%-1.533-26Justin Champagnie112303.4%-0.936-2Bilal Coulibaly31628020.0%-4.5-2-17Tristan Vukcevic15318424.9%-2.4-15-19Kyshawn George27548214.3%-2.6-14-14Malaki Branham71405.6%-0.9-40-6Sharife Cooper37011.4%-0.9-131-3AJ Johnson612015.3%-2.1-149-4
PACERS
MIN
POSS
ORTG
USG
+PTS
PPA
+/-
T.J. McConnell193916025.6%4.440612Pascal Siakam265412131.2%0.928632Jay Huff224416118.6%3.72886Ben Sheppard295914712.5%2.317524Bennedict Mathurin346911024.3%-1.013129Isaiah Jackson183715015.0%1.919223Jeremiah Robinson-Earl26537814.8%-3.08514Garrison Mathews224410217.5%-1.0769Jarace Walker23479222.3%-2.5444Tony Bradley81618418.7%2.02624Taelon Peter61215413.0%0.61774RayJ Dennis6123615.2%-1.4-624
