The Washington Wizards went to Madison Square Garden and got blasted, 119-102 by Karl-Anthony Towns and the New York Knicks. This was to be expected — the Wizards are rebuilding around youngsters still learning what it means to be in the NBA, and the Knicks are one of the stronger teams in the Eastern Conference trying to find their stride with new coaches and concepts.
The Wizards entered the game with something of a plan, which could be summed up with these words: Make someone other than Jalen Brunson beat you. And, for the first quarter and parts of the second, it kinda worked. Washington went after Brunson with the 6-8 Bilal Coulibaly and the 6-9 Kyshawn George. The duo tag-teamed Brunson, got in his grill, bumped him, and swiped constantly with arms that must have seemed like they were on extenders.
Coulibaly baited Brunson into an offensive foul 35 feet from the basket. Brunson probably could have been whistled for offensive fouls another 2-3 times. The Wizards also sent second defenders, packed bodies into driving lanes, and generally made life miserable for the star guard.
While Brunson never really got his scoring mojo into service, things did change in the second half. Brunson did exactly what the focal point of the opposing defense should do — he sucked in defenders and let his less heavily defended teammates make plays. Brunson tallied seven of his nine assists in the second half, and six Knicks scored in double figures.
The story for the Knicks was Towns, who seemed personally offended that the Wizards chose to let 20-year-old Alex Sarr defend him without help. Towns attacked early and often, powering Sarr under the basket and dunking on his head, and then coming back later for a second helping of angry dunking — with Sarr again playing the role of victim. Towns finished with 33 points, 13 rebounds, and 5 assists — a 122 offensive rating (points produced per individual possession x 100) and 40.9% usage rate.
Note: league average offensive rating is 115.5 so far this season.
For Washington, the best thing was the team’s apparent inability to quit. Even when the Knicks were rolling, the Wizards kept on fighting and trying to make plays. As will be the case a lot this season, the other guys were just better.
* It was nice to see Corey Kispert make shots. He hit 5-6, including 3-4 from deep. My favorite was probably the no-dip corner three.
* Also good to see from Kispert — the playmaking. He finished with four assists, which included driving, forcing big man help, and then dishing to Marvin Bagley III for a layup, a classic drive-and-kick to a wide-open Tre Johnson at the three-point line, and giving up a good shot for himself to get Johnson a better look in the corner.
* Washington shot well enough to win a lot of games — 54.9% effective field goal percentage, including 13-35, 37.1% on threes. Their offensive rating was an anemic 101 because of 20 turnovers. The culprits were the kids — Bub Carrington had five, George and Coulibaly had four each.
* The turnovers plus five fouls (a bit too much reaching) undercut a pretty good all-around game from Coulibaly. The Knicks dared him to shoot, and he hit 3-5 from deep. He attacked the paint multiple times, which got him to the free throw line a few times. Plus he grabbed 7 boards and played good defense. Not bad.
* Similar story for George, though he was called for just one foul. It’s the first time this season he committed fewer than four personal fouls. His shooting has been impressive so far this season — another 3-6 night from three-point range (which included makes on a step-back attempt in screen-and-roll (the defender went under), a slide-step three from above the break, and a corner three on which he checked his feet to be sure he was behind the line as he made the catch and went into his shot.
* Fun fact: George’s 50% shooting from three-point range last night _lowered_ his three-point percentage for the season from 54.5% to 53.8%.
* Sarr got overwhelmed by Towns’ aggression, skill and strength but still had a pretty good game overall. He finished with 19 points on decent efficiency, plus 8 rebounds, 7 assists, a steal and two blocks in 29 minutes. Towns is just bigger, stronger, more skilled, and more experienced — all of which makes sense considering this is year two for Sarr (age 20 season) and year 11 (age 30 season) for Towns.
* Another piece of perspective: Towns has more All-NBA seasons (three — all third team) than Sarr has seasons.
* One maybe worrisome thing — after one play in the second quarter, Cam Whitmore made a hand gesture that seemed to communicate irritation with George for not passing him the ball. Knicks analyst Alan Hahn commented on Whitmore’s facial expression after that same play, indicating he saw frustration and that he seemed to have wanted the ball on that play. Whitmore finished the night 1-3 from the floor with 1 rebound and 2 turnovers in 11 minutes.
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)
In the table below are the four factors using the percentages and rates traditionally presented.
eFG%
54.9%
54.8%
54.4%
OREB%
15.9%
24.5%
26.0%
TOV%
19.8%
11.9%
13.3%
FTM/FGA
0.160
0.170
0.232
PACE
101
100.8
ORTG
101
118
115.5
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**](https://kevinbroom.com/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._
Corey Kispert
15
31
187
24.4%
5.4
338
7
Alex Sarr
29
62
115
29.5%
\-0.1
167
\-11
Kyshawn George
30
64
95
20.4%
\-2.7
131
\-25
Tre Johnson
21
44
98
18.4%
\-1.4
96
4
Bilal Coulibaly
28
58
92
25.2%
\-3.4
62
\-13
Marvin Bagley III
14
30
162
11.6%
1.6
105
\-10
Justin Champagnie
17
36
119
9.5%
0.1
\-7
\-24
CJ McCollum
22
46
72
16.7%
\-3.3
\-12
\-15
Cam Whitmore
11
23
34
18.6%
\-3.6
\-105
4
Bub Carrington
25
53
56
16.7%
\-5.2
\-84
\-20
Anthony Gill
4
8
193
10.1%
0.6
259
6
Malaki Branham
4
9
116
35.8%
0.0
216
4
Tristan Vukcevic
4
9
113
46.6%
\-0.1
173
4
Will Riley
10
22
50
11.4%
\-1.6
\-28
0
AJ Johnson
4
9
0
8.5%
\-0.9
\-105
4
Karl-Anthony Towns
30
64
122
40.9%
1.8
259
13
Mikal Bridges
29
62
143
11.1%
1.9
217
21
OG Anunoby
32
67
111
18.3%
\-0.6
194
9
Josh Hart
26
55
161
13.3%
3.4
230
21
Jordan Clarkson
21
45
151
19.4%
3.1
217
17
Landry Shamet
25
52
113
16.4%
\-0.2
118
\-6
Jalen Brunson
32
68
100
26.5%
\-2.8
79
21
Miles McBride
14
30
145
10.8%
1.0
164
1
Guerschon Yabusele
14
29
58
13.2%
\-2.2
\-92
10
Ariel Hukporti
4
8
123
19.5%
0.1
276
\-6
Tyler Kolek
4
8
100
19.1%
\-0.2
50
\-6
Pacome Dadiet
4
8
0.0%
0.0
44
\-6
Mohamed Diawara
4
9
21
31.9%
\-2.7
\-467
\-4
See More:
* [Washington Wizards Statistical Analysis](/washington-wizards-statistical-analysis)