{"id":700468,"date":"2026-04-05T23:59:37","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T23:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/700468\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T23:59:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T23:59:37","slug":"washingtons-comeback-threat-ends-in-proper-tank-result","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/700468\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington\u2019s Comeback Threat Ends in Proper Tank Result"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gotta admit: when I saw the lineups for this Wizards at Nets game, I set aside the notepad. There were two key numbers that jumped out at me before the game began. They were:<\/p>\n

Those numbers represent how many players each had available who\u2019d be expected to be part of the team\u2019s full-health rotation next season. For the Wizards, it was Bub Carrington and Will Riley. For the Nets, Nolan Traore. If you want to stretch to include either Drake Powell or Jalen Wilson, I wouldn\u2019t squawk much, but the core point remains.<\/p>\n

\"Will<\/a><\/p>\n

Will Riley attacks the paint during the Washington Wizards loss to the Brooklyn Nets. (Photo by Pamela Smith\/Getty Images) Getty Images<\/p>\n

Both teams are committed to losing as much as possible to finish the season.<\/p>\n

Despite that commitment, the Wizards blew a 17-point first quarter deficit to actually take the lead a few times in the fourth quarter. Then the Nets got a case of \u201ccompetence\u201d and closed the game on a 20-10 run to give Washington the loss.<\/p>\n

This was an odd game in a few ways. The Wizards had just eight players available, yet head coach Brian Keefe barely played Sharife Cooper and Jaden Hardy.<\/p>\n

No one from the Wizards was particularly impressive, though there were some positives. Riley led the offense throughout the afternoon, and closed with a flurry of pointless buckets to juice his final tally to 30 points. He got the experience of trying to attack a defense loading up to stop him, and acquitted himself decently, despite four turnovers.<\/p>\n

JuJu Reese once again mashed a center-free opponent, this time with 16 rebounds in 44 minutes.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d caution against reading much into anything that happened in this game because of the dearth of genuine NBA talent on the floor for either team.<\/p>\n

None of this should undermine enjoyment of the game itself. I had fun watching \u2014 Traore is super-fast and seems to be developing as a shooter. Chaney Johnson had some oomph to his game. Watching Reese battle on the boards is entertaining. And Riley hit some crazy fluky shots, including that one off the top of the backboard while getting fouled and falling out of bounds, and a banked in three. They count though!<\/p>\n

Just four left in the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n

Below are the four factors that decide wins and losses in basketball \u2014 shooting (efg), rebounding (offensive rebounds), ball handling (turnovers), fouling (free throws made).<\/p>\n

The four factors are measured by:<\/p>\n

eFG% (effective field goal percentage, which accounts for the three-point shot)OREB% (offensive rebound percentage)TOV% (turnover percentage \u2014 turnovers divided by possessions)FTM\/FGA (free throws made divided by field goal attempts)FOUR FACTORSWIZARDSNETSLGAVGeFG%61.4%57.4%54.5%OREB%30.6%25.0%26.0%TOV%20.4%11.2%12.7%FTM\/FGA0.2280.2270.207PACE9899.3ORTG117123115.7<\/p>\n

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).<\/p>\n

PPA<\/a> 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\u2019t much use, and I reiterate the caution about small samples sometimes producing weird results.<\/p>\n

POSS is the number of possessions each player was on the floor in this game.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

USG = offensive usage rate. Average is 20%. Median so far this season is 17.7%.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

+PTS = \u201cPlus Points\u201d 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 \u2014 on average \u2014 would produced 23.0 points in the same 20 possessions. So, the player in this hypothetical would have a +PTS score of -3.0.<\/p>\n

Players are sorted by total production in the game.<\/p>\n

WIZARDSMINPOSSORTGUSG+PTSPPA+\/-Anthony Gill418418711.1%6.6117-5Will Riley357213431.7%4.3120-7Julian Reese44909422.3%-4.471-12Jamir Watkins448911917.0%0.566-5Leaky Black42867810.3%-3.358-11Bub Carrington173511430.2%-0.21076Sharife Cooper3722314.2%1.14141Jaden Hardy14288737.3%-2.9-803NETSMINPOSSORTGUSG+PTSPPA+\/-Jalen Wilson265316022.5%5.219810Nolan Traore285811335.1%-0.61446Drake Powell296012914.9%1.213113Josh Minott183711729.9%0.1205-2Chaney Johnson214414214.8%1.71697Ohcai Agbaji183712024.3%0.4180-2Trevon Scott28571279.2%0.61103E.J. Liddell306113118.4%1.71048Tyson Etienne204013118.5%1.2980Malachi Smith21435314.6%-4.0-18-13<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gotta admit: when I saw the lineups for this Wizards at Nets game, I set aside the notepad.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3767],"tags":[7,670,247,3803,6,671,3920],"class_list":{"0":"post-700468","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn-nets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-brooklyn-nets","11":"tag-brooklynnets","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-nets","14":"tag-washington-wizards-statistical-analysis"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116354822218089922","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}