Wizards Drop 11th Straight, Despite Celtics Poor Shooting Night

Here’s where the Wizards are at this point: losing by 11 to the Boston Celtics feels almost like an achievement. Most of the relative narrowness of that margin was due to Boston bricking open and wide-open threes they normally make, some working out of kinks related to Jayson Tatum’s return to the lineup, and probably a little Boston slacking off, but being almost kinda-sorta close to being almost competitive towards the end was…umm…something?

There was stuff in this game that I don’t recall ever seeing before. For example, Washington was +15 from three-point range in the first quarter and exited the period trailing by two.

Boston was so dominant on the boards, the broadcast team sent their stats guy to research the biggest single-game rebounding differential in franchise history. The Celtics were “only” =17 on the glass last night — well short of the franchise record (+52 during the Bill Russell era — Boston had 112 rebounds in that one game, believe it or not).

Washington’s defense was so bad, it revealed the “getting to watch good basketball” privilege enjoyed by Boston fans and analyst Brian Scalabrine. Scalabrine was baffled by Washington “choosing” not to defend Neemias Queta after the center went to help.

Several times, Scalabrine said he’d never seen a defense like the one Washington was playing — with no one cracking back to pick up the big. It was kinda cute that Scalabrine thought that was by design and not simply Washington defenders repeatedly blowing rotations they should be making.

The Wizards largely fixed the issue at halftime, by the way. Presumably the coaching staff reminded players to try a little.

The game revealed the oceanic distance Washington needs to cover to become a contender. Boston out-smarted, out-worked, and out-executed the Wizards all night long. The only thing keeping the final margin under 30 was the Celtics having an off night shooting the ball.

Thoughts & Observations

• The first defensive possession game me some hope — Bilal Coulibaly blocked a Jaylen Brown attempt to bully-ball a bucket. The defensive intensity didn’t last.
• Jayson Tatum looked pretty damn amazing considering he’s less than 10 months removed from tearing an Achilles. That injury used to be career-ending, or massively career-diminishing. Modern sports medicine is downright miraculous.
• The possession ending at 9:54 in the first quarter is a good example that illustrates Scalabrine’s point that Washington just didn’t guard the big man when their center helped. It’s not scheme, though — it’s failure to execute. On the play, Washington seemed to switch a high pick-and-roll. Sarr took Brown and Coulibaly seemingly having responsibility for Queta. Then Coulibaly suddenly blitzed Brown, giving Washington three defenders on two guys 25 feet from the basket (Trae Young was lurking there because Sam Hauser was coming up for a Spain screen. Washington had two guys low — Will Riley on Tatum in the strongside corner (he correctly stayed home on Tatum), and Tre Johnson on Derrick White in the weakside corner. Johnson didn’t move until the ball was already reaching Queta, and his “help” was a pointless flyby swipe at the ball. Again, that’s not scheme — the responsibilities were clear. Johnson just didn’t notice what was happening.
• Another? At 4:18, Sarr helped on a Tatum drive. I first thought no one rotated to help on Queta’s roll, but what actually happened was worse. Bub Carrington picked him up, and then just left him to run out and defend the weakside corner. I have no idea why he abandoned a seven-footer standing under the basket.
• So, I was about to add Boston’s announcers to the list of mis-pronouncers of Tristan Vukcevic’s name. But, I got curious at the persistent and consistent mispronunciation, so I googled it. And, the NBA’s official pronunciation guide — one where the players say their own names — has Vukcevic saying his name is Vook-chevitch. I stand corrected and apologize to all the announcers I’ve criticized along the way.
• Boston had many, many beautiful possessions in this game — great examples of teamwork, quick actions, and passes to create good shots, which they then missed because off night. A few examples, if you want to watch (use the official play-by-play on NBA.com)
  • 10:13, second quarter
  • 6:37, second quarter — a dribble handoff, a screen, a ghost screen, and a roll. Simply not guardable, even by a good defensive team.
  • 2:35 — A Spain pick-and-roll produces a Queta dunk.
• Boston’s Spain pick-and-roll sets are so fun to watch. They’re fast, varied, and brutal to defend. They mix in misdirection, real screens, ghost screens, rolls, pops, and drives. Joe Mazzulla’s system is superb.
• In the third quarter, Coulibaly had an impressive drive — Tatum couldn’t stay with him, and Queta couldn’t get there fast enough. Coulibaly missed the layup, but the turbo speed was cool to see.
• Jaden Hardy scored 12 points on five shots in just 15 minutes of action.
• Jamir Watkins competed on defense and hit shots.
• Vukcevic pumped in 22 points in 20 minutes, including six threes. Tanktacular moment: Vukcevic hit his sixth three, and moments later got replaced in the game by Anthony Gill. LMAO.

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%. Median so far this season is 17.7%.

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.