The best things from the Wizards loss to the Golden State Warriors were these:
Another aggressive and effective offensive performance from Bilal Coulibaly. The Warriors could not effectively defend him. He attacked wings and guards with dribble drives. When Golden State put Kristaps Porzingis on him and dared him to shoot, he knocked down threes…and then attacked the closeouts. Coulibaly had a 36.4% usage rate and a 130 offensive rating.
Will Riley had a hyper-efficient offensive game (160 offensive rating on 22.0% usage) that included outfoxing Draymond Green a few times, who is one of the NBA’s best defenders ever.
Will Riley shoots the ball during the Wizards loss to the Golden State Warriors. Photo by Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images)
Will Riley shoots the ball during the Wizards loss to the Golden State Warriors. Photo by Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images)
NBAE via Getty Images
What most interested me in this game was the solid performance of Pat Spencer, who was scouted and signed by the former Wizards management team led by Tommy Sheppard. Spencer played well in the G-League and summer league, and my statistical analysis suggested he might be able to make an NBA rotation.
Aside: Maybe there’s something to this statistical analysis stuff?
Despite a paucity of talent, the Wizards inexplicably (at least to me) traded Spencer to Golden State for some G-League draft picks.
Spencer is getting an extended run in Golden State’s rotation (17.7 minutes per game in 58 appearances this season), and he’s been okay. Last night, he looked like a standard NBA backup guard — 13 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, and a steal with solid efficiency in 24 minutes.
Spencer’s backstory is the best part because of his non-standard path to the NBA. His first sport was lacrosse, and he was one of the sport’s best players, all-time. He eschewed professional lacrosse, opting instead to attempt a basketball career.
He used his season of graduate eligibility to play at Northwestern only to have the season disrupted by the COVID pandemic. He played a season for the Hamburg Towers before signing to play for the Capital City Go-Go and Washington’s summer league squad.
Since then, he’s bounced between Golden State’s NBA roster and G-League team. This season, he’s played well enough that the Warriors converted his two-day deal to a standard NBA contract.
He also inspired one of the best quotes from a coach ever. After Spencer scored 19 points in his first NBA start, Golden State head coach Steve Kerr explained the decision to start Spencer by saying, “His coach realized Pat is that m*****f***er.” (Spencer had said something similar about himself a few days earlier.)
Anyway, kudos to Spencer for being an all-time great in one sport, and then switching to another and becoming good enough to earn a role in the NBA — the world’s best basketball league. There aren’t many people who have proven to be a great in one sport and being among the 500-600 best on the planet in another.
From the Notebook
Alex Sarr kept trying to score on Porzingis, which did not go well. He shot 0-3 from inside the arc when Porzingis was defending, and 1-3 from three-point range. He also fouled out in just 23 minutes.
Anthony Gill played another strong game — an example of how players can be successful by playing within the flow of the game and taking what the defense gives. In this game, he pump-faked threes and attacked closeouts to get relatively easy shots. This is a progression from him — earlier in the season (and throughout his career), he’s pump faked but not converted the advantage into good shots. Last night, he did.
I’ve written recently about broadcasters asserting that Leaky Black was a strong defender in college. Perhaps that’s true. At the NBA level, he’s been a disastrous combination of low effort and weak when he’s on-ball, and inattentive and slow when off-ball. He routinely gets caught ball-watching when he should be paying attention to his man cutting past him (sometimes in front of him) or sticking to his man when he should be helping. Last night, NBA tracking indicates the Warriors scored 28 points on 19 field goal attempts and produced 5 assists when Black was defending.
I still think Riley carries the ball constantly, which irritates the hoops purist in me. But, as someone in the comments suggested, if the refs aren’t going to call it, the “carries” are a kind of super power. Last night, he burned Green with a…hmm, gotta call it something…elongated hesi dribble (?) to get a layup.
Jaden Hardy did Jaden Hardy things in the fourth quarter, which is to say, he hit 4-5 from three-point range…and basically nothing else. That instant offense is fun, though. He kinda reminds me of Jordan Crawford, which is not intended as criticism or praise. There is definitely an empty calories flavor to Hardy’s game, but empty calories can be fun.
It was good to see an Omer Yurtseven make an appearance because his name is fun to say.
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 ### WIZARDS ### WARRIORS ### LGAVG
eFG% 62.1% 62.9% 54.4%
OREB% 12.8% 21.4% 26.0%
TOV% 10.8% 11.8% 12.8%
FTM/FGA 0.084 0.282 0.207
PACE 102 99.3
ORTG 124 129 115.6
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%. Median so far this season is 17.7%.
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 ### +/-
Will Riley 29 62 160 22.0% 6.1 219 6
Bilal Coulibaly 19 40 130 36.4% 2.1 261 -7
Jaden Hardy 12 25 237 19.7% 6.1 334 -7
Anthony Gill 25 53 143 17.4% 2.5 152 0
Bub Carrington 26 55 127 23.3% 1.5 121 -5
Sharife Cooper 11 23 144 25.8% 1.7 168 8
Jamir Watkins 6 13 299 6.2% 1.5 234 1
Leaky Black 42 89 80 10.0% -3.2 17 -8
Alex Sarr 23 48 87 24.1% -3.3 2 -8
Tre Johnson 22 47 88 21.3% -2.8 -4 -11
Justin Champagnie 25 54 71 17.6% -4.2 -40 6
### WARRIORS ### MIN ### POSS ### ORTG ### USG ### +PTS ### PPA ### +/-
Gui Santos 33 71 166 22.4% 8.0 197 5
Brandin Podziemski 33 71 126 26.5% 1.9 192 7
Kristaps Porzingis 29 61 147 28.6% 5.5 220 5
Will Richard 25 52 176 9.3% 2.9 120 -10
Draymond Green 32 68 114 14.1% -0.1 84 4
Pat Spencer 26 55 115 19.3% -0.1 100 3
Gary Payton II 25 53 106 23.8% -1.2 93 4
LJ Cryer 27 58 99 18.0% -1.7 46 11
Malevy Leons 3 6 0 12.3% -0.9 -122 0
Omer Yurtseven 8 17 0 6.2% -1.2 -70 -4