Wizards follow familiar script to beat Knicks

The Wizards win over the hapless Knicks followed a season-long pattern of good offense and bad defense, but still offered a few encouraging signs.

The positives: another stellar offensive night from Bradley Beal, efficient production from Thomas Bryant, a nice bounce-back game from Rui Hachimura, and solid play from Shabazz Napier and Moe Wagner.

For Hachimura it was an important return to playing effective basketball after going 0-14 from the floor over his previous two games. After going 0-6 in 33 minutes against the Hawks, the rookie shot 0-8 in 40 minutes in the loss to the Heat. That earned Hachimura the dubious distinction of being the only player so far this season to have zero field goals with at least five attempts and 30 minutes played.

The all-time “leader” in this category is Jason Kidd, who did it 19 times in his career. For the most part, Hachimura joins pretty good company with the “oh-for” games. This makes some sense — a player has to be good enough overall and have sufficient mental toughness and confidence to stay on the floor despite terrible shooting.

The top of the “of-for” leaderboard includes a mix of good players and specialists like Bruce Bowen, Mark Jackson, Ricky Rubio, Paul Silas, Norm Van Lier, Trevor Ariza, Chris Duhon, Derek Fisher, Hersey Hawkins, Dennis Johnson, Kyle Lowry, Andre Miller and Gary Payton. Each did it five times or more.

With two such games, Hachimura is tied for the franchise lead with Manute Bol and Wes Unseld. According to Basketball-Reference, 26 Wizards/Bullets have accomplished the feat.

Back to Wizards-Knicks, the team defense was crummy once again. Facing the NBA’s 28th ranked offense, the Wizards allowed New York an offensive rating of 116 (points per possession x 100) — a full 10 points better than their season average.

Probably the strangest stat line of the night belonged to Jerome Robinson. He started and did almost nothing — 0-2 from the floor, a rebound, an assist, a block and a foul — and yet the team was +23 in his 14 minutes.

Player Production Average and Scoreboard Impact Rating

Below are results from a couple metrics I developed. Player Production Average (PPA) is an overall production metric that’s pace neutral and accounts for defense. It rewards players for doing things to help their team and debits them for things that don’t — each in proper proportion. In PPA, 100 is average and higher is better.

Scoreboard Impact Rating (SIR) translates overall production into points on the scoreboard in this game.