The Washington Wizards just keep on losing. Last night, it was to Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets — Washington’s 8th loss in a row and 11th in their last 12 games.

The Nuggets bludgeoned the Wizards with 98 points in the paint. That’s a new Denver franchise record. Nuggets PR tweeted that it’s the most by an NBA team in at least 25 years.

Washington got outrebounded 45-24. Daniel Gafford and Deni Avdija combined for 14 of the Wizards’ boards.

With Kristaps Porzingis out because of the need to avoid facing Jokic back tightness, Jokic carved up Washington’s defense. The two-time NBA Most Valuable Player finished with 43 points, 14 rebounds, 8 assists and 5 steals. He made 17-20 from the floor, including 17-18 on twos. He also had 8 turnovers, though it wasn’t as if Wizards defenders were forcing them.

Jokic’s night gets even more absurd with the realization that one of his three missed shots was a midcourt heave. Here’s his shot chart from NBA.com:

Jokic was joined in feasting on the heads of hapless Wizards by Aaron Gordon (22 points on 14 field goal attempts), Bruce Brown (13 points on 6 field goal attempts), Bones Hyland (23 points on 11 field goal attempts), and Uncle Jeff Green (10 points on 6 field goal attempts).

The 36-year old Green had several highlights, including a ferocious dunk on Gafford.

Good Stuff

• Monte Morris played well in his homecoming game. He scored 20 points on just 11 FGA and handed out 11 assists.
• Corey Kispert made some threes (4-6 from deep) on the road.
• Avdija was okay — one of the few players who offered professional effort on the defensive end.
• The Denver Nuggets had classy tribute videos for Morris and Will Barton, who played most of their careers in Denver.

Not So Good Stuff

• Washington’s defensive effort was an embarrassment. Kyle Kuzma’s defensive indifference got so bad that Osman Baig texted midway through the fourth quarter to see if it was out of line to comp Kuzma to Jabari Parker. At least last night, it was not. With Kuzma on the floor, the team’s defensive rating was a staggering 138.
• As long as I’m picking on Kuzma, his offense stunk too. Against Denver, he scored 24 points on decent shooting (9-16 from the floor, 4-8 from three) and had 4 assists, but he also had 3 turnovers and shot 2-6 from the free throw line. In a game where Washington’s offensive rating (points per possession x 100) was 119 and Denver’s was 131, Kuzma’s was 108.
• Will Barton had some nice flashes early but overall wasn’t very good. He had 22 points on 7-15 shooting from the floor (including 4-8 from deep), plus 9 assists. He also committed 5 turnovers and had an offensive rating of 104 with a 28.9% usage rate.

Wizards Brain Teaser

Below is a randomized list of Kuzma’s relative offensive rating — individual offensive rating minus league average offensive rating — for each season of his career (not including last night’s game).

1. -7.6
2. -7.3
3. -4.4
4. -7.7
5. -9.0
6. -3.6

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to guess which of these seasons are his two with the Wizards (answer at the bottom).

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.

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.

Wizards Brain Teaser Answer

Kuzma’s two seasons in Washington are numbers 4 and 5 from the randomized list above. Here’s his relative offensive rating in chronological order:

• 2017-18 — LAL: -3.6
• 2018-19 — LAL: -4.4
• 2019-20 — LAL: -7.6
• 2020-21 — LAL: -7.3
• 2021-22 — WAS: -9.0
• 2022-23 — WAS: -7.7

This is a franchise cornerstone?