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Wizards run winning streak to four with win against Grizzlies

Stats and analysis from last night’s game.

Memphis Grizzlies v Washington Wizards
Wizards wingman Will Barton
Photo by Greg Fiume/Getty Images

The Washington Wizards rolled over the depleted Memphis Grizzlies for their fourth straight victory. They’re now two games over .500, and their schedule is about to get truly strange. Here are the next five games:

Their fourth and final game of the season against Miami comes April 7. It makes sense to someone in the league office.

Last night, both teams had bad offensive games. Washington’s offensive rating (points per possession x 100) was 102. Memphis’s was 92. League average: 112.1.

The difficult question to answer is whether the Grizzlies poor offensive performance had much to do with the Wizards defending well. Memphis was missing its top two offensive players — Ja Morant and Desmond Bane — as well as their best defender, Jaren Jackson Jr.

On one hand, the Grizzlies took (and missed) a ton of floater range shots, as well as a high number of long twos. Memphis also had about 12 fewer three point attempts than their norm. That could be a reflection of the missing stars and the presence of Dillon Brooks, also known as president of the Dillon Brooks Fan Club.

Brooks helped the Wizards enormously by combining a 35% usage rate with an offensive rating of 79. He and Brandon Clarke combined to produce 22 points in 30 possessions used. To use a technical term, that’s bad.

On the other hand, the Wizards defense is number one in forcing opponents into floater range shots, and second in preventing at-rim attempts — while also not giving up an inordinate number of threes.

On yet another hand (I’m not trying to invoke Durga here), the Grizzlies bungled their way to 16 turnovers. The Washington defense ranks 28th in forcing opponent miscues.

Offensively, the Wizards made threes and not much else. They were 19-40 from deep, led by Kristaps Porzingis (6-10), Deni Avdija (4-7), Jordan Goodwin (3-4) and Corey Kispert (2-2). Washington was 0-9 on two point attempts from outside the paint.

For the game, Porzingis was 7-15 from the floor. A bit of math shows that the 7-3 unicorn was 1-5 from inside the arc.

Kristaps Porzingis shot chart.

Avdija was aggressive offensively from the start. He led the team in field goal attempts and his 25.5% usage rate was second only Porzingis’ 26.8%. To my eye, he got tired late, which makes sense considering he played 34 minutes while doing a lot more on offense than has been his norm. His overall efficiency was boosted by good shooting from the floor (62.5% efg) but pulled down by 3 turnovers and going 1-3 from the free throw line.

Kispert made shots and did the right things on defense. The team defense was at its best with him in the game.

EDITED: Stats for Jordan Goodwin and Will Barton got crossed up. My apologies for the error.

Goodwin had yet another terrific game — 10 points, 8 rebounds (!) 4 assists, 1 steal, 1 block and no turnovers in 26 minutes. He shot 3-4 from three-point range.

The 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).

I’ve simplified them a bit. While the factors are usually presented as percentages, I find the raw numbers more useful when analyzing a single game.

Four Factors: Grizzlies 92 at Wizards 102

FOUR FACTORS GRIZZLIES WIZARDS
FOUR FACTORS GRIZZLIES WIZARDS
EFG 0.443 0.529
OREB 14 9
TOV 16 15
FTM 7 11
PACE 100
ORTG 92 102

Stats & Metrics

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. 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 112.0. 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.

CORRECTED Stats & Metrics: Wizards

WIZARDS MIN POSS PTS ORTG USG PPA GmSC +/-
WIZARDS MIN POSS PTS ORTG USG PPA GmSC +/-
Kristaps Porzingis 31 66 25 133 26.8% 269 32.0 10
Jordan Goodwin 26 55 10 145 13.9% 263 26.1 3
Corey Kispert 32 67 12 131 11.1% 203 24.7 13
Monte Morris 27 57 10 98 21.8% 185 19.2 3
Deni Avdija 34 71 21 107 25.5% 106 13.6 4
Will Barton 23 47 7 87 18.9% 88 7.5 2
Daniel Gafford 17 35 5 95 19.6% 30 1.9 0
Rui Hachimura 15 32 3 52 17.4% -102 0.0 5
Kyle Kuzma 34 72 9 59 21.7% -56 0.0 10

Stats & Metrics: Grizzlies

GRIZZLIES MIN POSS PTS ORTG USG PPA GmSC +/-
GRIZZLIES MIN POSS PTS ORTG USG PPA GmSC +/-
Steven Adams 29 61 12 137 19.4% 191 21.2 4
Santi Aldama 29 60 15 123 18.5% 194 21.1 3
Tyus Jones 36 76 17 93 23.0% 95 13.1 -4
John Konchar 37 76 7 85 9.0% 35 4.8 -7
David Roddy 28 58 11 88 17.8% 45 4.7 -24
Kennedy Chandler 12 25 5 103 22.2% 90 4.0 -6
Jake LaRavia 26 54 2 45 13.8% -53 0.0 15
Brandon Clarke 15 32 4 62 27.2% -103 0.0 -8
Dillon Brooks 28 59 19 79 35.1% -99 0.0 1