The Wizards traveled to New York where they took on a savvy, veteran, professional team and got vanquished, 132-101. The home town crowd enjoyed the New York-sized victory, chanting “MVP” when Jalen Brunson shot free throws in the third quarter.
Editor’s Note: The game was played in DC.
Note back to the Editor: On TV, they showed entire sections of the stadium filled with people wearing Knicks regalia. Are you sure?!
Editor’s Note: Yes.
Wizards guard AJ Johnson scores in the team’s loss to the New York Knicks.
Wizards guard AJ Johnson scores in the team’s loss to the New York Knicks.
NBAE via Getty Images
In the grand tradition of Wizards/Bullets seeing their home stadium taken over by the opposing team’s fans, this one lands near the bottom. Sure, Lakers games probably take the top (bottom?) spot, but the Knicks faithful gave them a good run for their money last night.
Bright side: at least I got to listen to Walt Frazier, who remains thoroughly unique. Just once, I’d love to hear him on a broadcast with Charlotte Hornets play-by-play man Eric Collins. For fellow veteran Frazier watchers, last night he wore a leopard print blazer and a leopard print necktie. This ensemble is actually somewhat tame by his standards. I hope there’s a social media account that posts pictures of his outfits.
In addition to entertaining with his one-of-a-kind rhyming and SAT-word vocabulary, Frazier is a worthwhile listen on basketball topics. Last night, he shared how he returned from a sprained ankle in half the expected time by spending his nights in a chair putting his foot in and out of a bucket of ice. He talked about how some of the players being honored on “Black Excellence Night” were “my nemesis.”
And, he quickly and correctly answered the evening’s trivia question, “When was the last time the Knicks had two All-Stars in the same season.” He did have something of a cheat, considering that the correct answer was himself and Dave DeBusschere in 1974.
He also had this observation, which sounded like it could have been ripped from my notebook every time the Wizards play: “You can tell these guys are young by the turnovers they make. So careless with the ball.”
Speaking of being a “veteran,” every time I see AJ Johnson, my brain says, “A.J. English.”
For those readers who are younger than LeBron James, English was a 1990 second round pick out of Virginia Union University by the Bullets. He played two seasons for the team— 1990-91 and 1991-92. He actually wasn’t bad — at least good enough to think he could be on an NBA roster for a few years. He signed with the Portland Trail Blazers after those two years in Washington, didn’t make the team and never played in the league again.
Other highlights from the game: late in the half, the Knicks broadcaster shared the news that the Los Angeles Clippers had traded James Harden to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Darius Garland and a second round pick.
Thoughts & Observations
In the first two minutes of the game, I jotted three notes, “Walt Frazier!!!” and “George out of control closeout” and “KAT overpowers Sarr for oreb and putback hook.” Feels like I could have copy-and-pasted that over and over all night long.
In the first quarter, Mikal Bridges made a crosscourt pass to the weakside corner that used to be an example of amazing court vision and skill. It’s one John Wall made regularly. Now it’s routine in the NBA.
Under new head coach Mike Brown, the Knicks tried to manage Karl-Anthony Towns’ defensive deficiencies by forcing penetration to the middle (somewhat unorthodox at the NBA level) and helping hard from the perimeter. The result: New York gave up tons of threes and still had trouble controlling the paint. Now the Knicks are back to “icing” pick-and-roll (forcing the ball to the sideline) and trying to keep the ball out of the middle. In other words, the kind of scheme Tom Thibodeau was using.
I had several notes about Wizards players doing a poor job of helping at-rim. One example was in the second quarter — Towns drove on Sarr for an and-one dunk. The weird thing was that Kyshawn George rotated into the perfect place to contest…and did nothing. He literally just stood there with his arms at his side and watched Towns dunk. On another second quarter play, OG Anunoby drove past George. Both Bub Carrington and Bilal Coulibaly were in good “low man” position on opposite sides of the lane. Neither came over to cut off the drive or contest the dunk. I’m not sure what happened to George on the first example other than maybe he thought Sarr was in position to make a play. On the second, I suspect it was communication issue.
The Knicks led by 27 at the half, which was their biggest halftime lead of the season.
At the half, the Wizards were -25 or worse with each of the five starters on the floor. They finished the game at -30 or worse.
Especially when he’s pivoting on his left shoulder, I’d very much prefer for Sarr to settle himself and shoot the jump hook rather than a fading jumper.
In the third quarter, Walt Frazier joined me in wondering why the Wizards kept letting Jalen Brunson go left. It’s right up there with why they were literally trying to force Harden left when they played the Clippers earlier this season.
The only real drama in this one was whether the Knicks could hold Washington under 100 points (as they have each of their victims in their current seven-game winning streak), and whether they could win by 40 or more. The Knicks failed on both counts.
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)
### FOUR FACTORS ### KNICKS ### WIZARDS ### LGAVG
eFG% 61.7% 47.1% 54.3%
OREB% 22.0% 19.6% 26.1%
TOV% 8.9% 12.9% 12.7%
FTM/FGA 0.233 0.233 0.209
PACE 101 99.5
ORTG 131 100 115.5
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%.
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.
### WIZARDS ### MIN ### POSS ### ORTG ### USG ### +PTS ### PPA ### +/-
AJ Johnson 24 50 148 19.9% 3.2 136 -1
Will Riley 25 53 114 25.8% -0.1 93 -1
Marvin Bagley III 16 33 124 27.0% 0.8 119 -4
Alex Sarr 25 52 92 26.8% -3.2 47 -31
Sharife Cooper 19 39 94 22.3% -1.9 44 4
Kyshawn George 26 55 110 14.2% -0.5 26 -33
Bub Carrington 25 52 96 24.6% -2.4 23 -30
Khris Middleton 22 47 95 23.3% -2.2 25 -31
Bilal Coulibaly 24 51 65 10.7% -2.8 -4 -30
Justin Champagnie 20 43 36 18.2% -6.2 -87 -4
Anthony Gill 7 15 0.0% 0.0 121 2
Skal Labissiere 7 16 98 8.2% -0.2 29 4
### KNICKS ### MIN ### POSS ### ORTG ### USG ### +PTS ### PPA ### +/-
Mikal Bridges 26 54 181 24.1% 8.4 376 23
Karl-Anthony Towns 26 55 108 31.0% -1.4 200 30
Landry Shamet 21 44 177 14.4% 3.9 238 23
OG Anunoby 27 57 137 21.4% 2.6 182 13
Jalen Brunson 31 66 122 25.0% 1.0 156 32
Josh Hart 22 46 153 10.9% 1.9 179 34
Ariel Hukporti 22 45 139 16.7% 1.8 148 1
Mohamed Diawara 4 9 246 23.0% 2.7 594 4
Jordan Clarkson 21 45 130 18.1% 1.2 74 -3
Tyler Kolek 21 44 67 20.4% -4.3 -46 10
Dillon Jones 9 20 97 6.4% -0.2 64 -6
Trey Jemison III 9 20 40 15.4% -2.3 -89 -6