There’s no shame losing to the Toronto Raptors in Toronto. They’re not an Eastern Conference power, but the Raptors have some talent, play together and are well-coached. But this was yet another non-competitive game for the Wizards. In a continuation of a worrisome trend, Washington fell behind big and never threatened.

In this one, the Raptors blasted out to a 25-point second quarter lead, and the game was effectively over. The Wizards narrowed the gap to as little as 11 in the final minutes, but the outcome was never in doubt.

Bright spots for the Wizards:

• Kentavious Caldwell-Pope made shots — 8-9 from the floor and 4-4 from three-point range.
• Raul Neto was good off the bench with 2-3 shooting from three.

That’s about it.

Bradley Beal was decent overall — just 4-12 shooting, but he had 7 assists and didn’t commit any turnovers. The problem: he’s supposed to be The Franchise Player. The Wizards aren’t paying him max money to be average.

The Wizards got nothing from rotation players Spencer Dinwiddie, Davis Bertans, Daniel Gafford and Deni Avdija. Montrezl Harrell rebounded well, but was inefficient offensively.

Bertans was back to firing blanks — 0-6 from three-point range. He was a wreck defensively, and the team was a staggering -19 in his 14 minutes on the floor.

This was not a case of the Raptors just playing well. Pascal Siakam and Precious Achiuwa were the only starters who rated average or better in PPA. Gary Trent Jr., Scottie Barnes and Fred VanVleet — Toronto’s other starters — rated at or below replacement level. The Wizards got sand kicked in their face by guys like Dalano Banton, Svi Mykhailiuk, Chris Boucher and Yuta Watanabe.

The next few weeks are going to be challenging. For the Wizards, 9 of their next 11 are on the road, and my prediction machine has them favored in just 3. How rough have the last dozen games been for Washington? When they beat Orlando, my prediction machine forecasted them at 50.7 wins if they (and the rest of the league) continued to play as they had to that point in the season.

After last night’s loss to the Raptors, the forecast is down to 39.5 games.

Four Factors

Below are the four factors that decide who wins and loses in basketball — shooting (efg), rebounding (offensive rebounds), ball handling (turnovers), fouling (free throws made).

I’ve simplified them a bit. While the factors are usually presented as percentages, that’s more useful over a full season. In a single game, the raw numbers in each category are easier to understand.

Key Stats

Below are a few performance metrics, including the Player Production Average (PPA) Game Score (very similar to the one I used to call Scoreboard Impact Rating). 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).

Game Score (GmSC) converts individual production into points on the scoreboard in this game. The scale is the same as points and reflects each player’s total contributions for the game. The lowest possible GmSC is zero.

PPA is a per possession metric designed for larger data sets. In small sample sizes, the numbers can get weird. But some readers prefer it so I’m including PPA scores as well. Reminder: 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 producing weird results.

POSS is the number of possessions each player was on the floor in this game.

PTS = points scored

ORTG = offensive rating, which is points produced per individual possessions x 100. League average last season was 112.3. 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 slightly modified versions of stats created by Wizards assistant coach Dean Oliver and modified slightly 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.