The Wizards beat the Orlando Magic, 102-100, to move their record back to .500. It was one of those Sunday slog kind of wins — a long-standing NBA tradition of teams struggling through an early start on the weekend.

And it was ugly. The Magic entered the game allowing 112.7 points per 100 possessions (the NBA’s sixth worst defense), and the Wizards managed just 104. Washington’s 23rd ranked defense “held” the Magic offense to an offensive rating of 102 — 1.1 points below Orlando’s season average.

The Wizards trailed by as much as 10 in the first half, and by 8 in the fourth quarter. But the tank is strong in Orlando, and Washington rode a strong fourth quarter from Kyle Kuzma (14 points and 6 rebounds in the final period) to escape with the victory.

It was a superb game for Kuzma — 27 points and a career-high 22 rebounds, as well as solid defense. Daniel Gafford was excellent as well — 12 points on 7 shots, 5 rebounds (4 on the offensive glass) and 3 blocks at the rim.

Spencer Dinwiddie had an oddly productive game. He managed just 8 points on 8 field goal attempts, and had only 1 rebound. He also did a good job setting up teammates (10 assists), had zero turnovers as the primary ball handler, and the team was +16 in his 30 minutes.

Rui Hachimura made his first appearance of the season, and it looked like a first game after a long layoff.

In keeping with another long-standing NBA tradition, the Wizards got torched by Terrence Ross, who scored 32 points on 20 shots in just 31 minutes. In the third quarter, Ross hit 7-7 from the floor, including 2-2 from three-point range, to score 16 or Orlando’s 22 points in the period.

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 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.