In the second quarter, it looked like the Wizards were going to get trucked yet again. They managed to score just two points in the first six minutes of the second quarter and fell behind by as much as 27 in the period. And then, they returned from halftime feisty and engaged, and cut Minnesota’s lead to as little as four in the final period before finally succumbing, 120-109.
Wizards wing Bilal Coulibaly with one of his two driving dunks in the team’s loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Getty Images
Don’t misconstrue the events — at no point did it feel like the Wizards were a serious threat to win. Even when the lead was down to four, it still felt like the Timberwolves just needed to hit a few of the open shots they were getting, and everything would be okay for them.
That’s kinda what happened.
Washington lost despite shooting better from the floor (the team that shoots better (measured by effective field goal percentage) wins about 80% of the time in the NBA) because they once again failed to corral defensive rebounds, committed nearly twice as many turnovers, and fouled a bunch, which gave Minnesota lots of free throws.
After last night, the Wizards will likely take over last place in defensive rebounding percentage. Entering the game, only the Portland Trail Blazers were worse.
Favorite moment for an old baller who had to get by on guile for the final decade of my playing days, I appreciated Khris Middleton beating Anthony Edwards on a backdoor cut during a sideline out-of-bounds play in the third quarter. It was classic old man stuff — Middleton made his cut exactly at the moment Edwards turned his head to see if he was going to get screened. He wasn’t, and Middleton got a layup anyway.The Wizards were without Alex Sarr, who missed the game with big toe soreness. While Marvin Bagley III and Tristan Vukcevic tried, Washington missed Sarr against the Minnesota bigs — Rudy Gobert, Naz Reid, and Julius Randle.A measure of how porous Washington’s perimeter defense has been this season: Sarr leads the NBA in shots defended inside six feet at 11.6 per game. The next closest player is Walker Kessler from the Utah Jazz at 8.6. Opponents are shooting 11.2% worse than expected when Sarr defends one of these at-rim attempts. That’s the biggest change among the top 10 defenders of shots inside six feet.Bilal Coulibaly played a pretty strong game, which include two drives in the half court that ended in dunks. I want more of that.If you just looked at the glory stats (points, rebounds, assists), you’d probably think Kyshawn George was excellent — 23-7-7. Aspects of his game were terrific, but the negatives count too — his four turnovers and four fouls were costly.Cam Whitmore is making a case for more playing time. Against the Timberwolves, he scored 13 points in 20 minutes on just 8 shots. He added six rebounds and a pair of assists — one of them a genuinely surprising kickout when he had a pretty good shot.Tristan Vukcevic got minutes with Sarr out and showed why he’s third on the depth chart behind a minimum salary veteran who’s been traded multiple times and returned to Washington because no one else was interested (Bagley). He was overwhelmed inside by Gobert, Reid and Randle, shot just 2-8 from the floor, committed three turnovers, and somehow fouled out in 20 minutes.While Washington’s defensive results were better in the second half, I’m not all that convinced their defensive process was much better than the abysmal first half results. It felt like Minnesota was still getting open looks, they just weren’t hitting like they did in earlier in the game.Timberwolves analyst Jim Petersen broke down one offensive play where the Timberwolves used smart ball and player movement to get a wide open three. When he got to the final drive and kick, Petersen noted that Washington’s weakside defender (Middleton) would be forced to choose which shooter to cover — the guy in the corner or the guy on the wing. When Middleton inexplicably went into the paint to double Gobert, Petersen marveled at how Donte DiVincenzo had his choice because both guys were open. He kindly did not criticize Middleton’s strange choice. I’m not so nice. An error like that from one of the team’s Official Wise Veterans is ridiculous.
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 FACTORSWIZARDSTIMBERWOLVESLGAVGeFG%56.8%51.6%54.3%OREB%27.9%38.0%26.4%TOV%17.6%9.3%13.2%FTM/FGA0.1020.2450.227PACE97100.5ORTG113124115.6
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.
WIZARDSMINPOSSORTGUSG+PTSPPA+/-Bilal Coulibaly295918411.7%4.7162-2Kyshawn George377511428.1%-0.3117-7Cam Whitmore204016319.2%3.6201-2Khris Middleton275513217.1%1.5126-2Marvin Bagley III316211120.4%-0.611210CJ McCollum316210321.5%-1.7701Tre Johnson173510221.3%-1.078-1Bub Carrington17338410.4%-1.1-43-16Corey Kispert11222820.8%-3.9-144-12Tristan Vukcevic20407426.3%-4.4-88-24TIMBERWOLVESMINPOSSORTGUSG+PTSPPA+/-Julius Randle336614232.3%5.62320Naz Reid275513630.4%3.426116Donte DiVincenzo367314012.1%2.112410Mike Conley275516414.6%3.9155-7Jaylen Clark265210712.2%-0.51462Rudy Gobert367312214.2%0.7966Anthony Edwards36739424.1%-3.8372Rob Dillingham9175726.4%-2.710310Bones Hyland10199317.8%-0.83816