The Washington Wizards played well for long stretches, building a 16-point advantage in the first half, and leading for more than 41 of the game’s 48 minutes, and still depart Chicago with their 14th straight loss.
This one was both encouraging and disheartening that the Wizards could find a way to lose. The Bulls have been one of the NBA’s better three-point shooting teams this season, but they were firing blanks most of the night. They finished the game 12-44 — 27.3%.
Corey Kispert and Cam Whitmore played well in the Wizards loss to the Chicago Bulls. Getty Images
Meanwhile, the Wizards were hitting from deep — 16-36 — 44.4%. Washington shot better overall from the floor, and held their own on the boards. Sure, they gave up 18 offensive boards, but they got 15 of their own and did a better job converting those offensive rebounds into points.
Ultimately, Washington lost because of turnovers (five more than Chicago), and free throws. The Wizards did a lot of unfortunate hacking and grabbing and holding, and it cost them. The Bulls were +9 from the free throw line in a game they won by a single point.
It’s tempting to characterize this game as a “blown” lead or one the Wizards gave away. My thinking is that the game is 48 minutes. Both teams competed hard, and the final minutes were downright frantic. The Wizards seemed to run out of gas in the final 4-5 minutes (mental mistakes can be a sign of fatigue), and the more established Bulls finally hit some shots.
For the Wizards, the result stings a bit. They clearly wanted this one, they fought for it, and had every opportunity to win. And they still came up short.
Corey Kispert got the start in place of Khris Middleton (who sat on the second night of a back-to-back) and was terrific in the first half. The Bulls adjusted in the second half and limited his production, but the end result was still one of his better games of the past couple seasons — 20 points on just 10 shots, 5 rebounds, 5 assists.I really liked Kyshawn George’s game. He led the offense for significant stretches, including operating as lead ball handler with a bench unit. He didn’t shoot well but scrapped his way to 17 points, 12 rebounds (4 on the offensive glass), 7 assists and 4 steals. He also had four turnovers, including one on the team’s final offensive possession. He thought he got fouled (I didn’t see a foul on replay), and the Wizards didn’t get a final shot down one. Learning experience, though.Cam Whitmore was terrific — 20 points and 7 rebounds in 18 minutes. His athleticism is eye-popping. He went so hard on an and-one transition dunk on Chicago’s Jalen Smith that ended up on the deck well into the photographers and event staff behind the basket. And he was laughing at the utter insanity of the play he made. He also committed a really stupid offensive foul on an inbounds play during some rare late-game minutes.Bilal Coulibaly was largely invisible in this one. When head coach Brian Keefe shuffles the lineup, I would not be shocked to see Coulibaly replaced as a starter by Whitmore.The Wizards gave up 9 offensive rebounds to Nikola Vucevic.Bulls guard Josh Giddey had a triple-double — 18 points, 12 rebounds, 11 assists. He’s been having a good season, and he was good again last night.
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 FACTORSWIZARDSBULLSLGAVGeFG%54.2%47.5%54.4%OREB%28.8%31.0%26.5%TOV%14.4%9.6%13.3%FTM/FGA0.1670.2480.226PACE104100.5ORTG116117115.6
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+/-Corey Kispert378017313.7%6.32016Kyshawn George367710724.8%-1.71570Cam Whitmore183814632.4%3.82594Tristan Vukcevic20439924.4%-1.81607CJ McCollum275911922.5%0.589-7Alex Sarr28609127.6%-4.156-8Justin Champagnie2350938.2%-0.960-11Bilal Coulibaly255411213.1%-0.2131Will Riley352454.4%0.398-1Bub Carrington24529118.6%-2.394BULLSMINPOSSORTGUSG+PTSPPA+/-Josh Giddey347413521.9%3.22413Nikola Vucevic275815031.0%6.2270-1Matas Buzelis296310117.5%-1.7854Kevin Huerter194212217.5%0.594-9Julian Phillips10222168.8%1.91563Jalen Smith19419225.0%-2.569-3Coby White316810028.8%-3.0378Ayo Dosunmu29639213.6%-2.0232Jevon Carter1123689.2%-1.0590Tre Jones265711614.5%0.0197Noa Essengue4808.4%-0.8-95-9