The Washington Wizards went to Sacramento and blasted the Kings, 125-111, in a game that was never that close.

Washington deployed an all big frontcourt that included Kristaps Porzingis, Daniel Gafford and Kyle Kuzma. It worked, at least against the Kings.

As the team bled down the count of remaining possessions late in the game, it got the rare opportunity this season to celebrate a win well before the final buzzer. Washington rolled over the Wizards West, also known as the best lineup the Sacramento Kings can get on the floor.

Good Stuff

• Kuzma had 32 points, 9 rebounds and 5 assists on 14-23 shooting. If he played like this every night (or nearly), he’d be worth the max.
• Bradley Beal had...ho-hum...another and efficient and effective game. He finished with 24 points on 10-16 shooting.
• Back from injury, Rui Hachimura was terrific in the first half. He ended the game with 21 points on 9-15 shooting, plus 5 rebounds and 4 assists.
• Delon Wright returned from his hamstring injury with a weirdly impressive performance — 2 points, 1 rebound, 8 assists and a steal in 15 minutes.
• Monte Morris was outstanding with 16 points on just 7 field goal attempts, plus 5 assists, 3 steals and his usual zero turnovers.
• Yeah, Domantas Sabonis plays for the other team, but 20-15-10 is an impressive stat line for any player, especially when the shooting was meh.

Not So Good Stuff

• Kristaps Porzingis stunk — 7 points and 13 rebounds on 2-11 shooting.
• Taj Gibson stunk too — his 8 points in 13 minutes offset by 2 turnovers and fouling out.

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.