Here’s how the last few games have gone for the Wizards:

• LeBron James scored 50
• Josh Hart scored 44
• Stephen Curry scored 47.

In beating the Wizards, the Golden State Warriors made 18 threes and had an effective field goal percentage of 64.3%. It was the sixth time this season Washington allowed an opponent to shoot better than 60%, but only their third worst defensive efg of the season.

There’s no shame in losing to the Warriors, of course. Golden State is one of the league’s best teams, and they had their Big Three of Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green together for the first time in nearly three years. But the Wizards were...puzzling.

For example, they appeared to have their big men in drop coverage throughout the night. Against Curry and Thompson — two of the best shooters in basketball history. When they weren’t in drop, they were switching and ending up with Kristaps Porzingis, Daniel Gafford and Rui Hachimura attempting to defend Curry and Poole in space.

And, despite Raul Neto playing well, head coach Wes Unseld Jr. limited him to 22 minutes, and went with Ish Smith who was meh.

Overall, the Wizards offense was average against a Warriors team that was less than committed to playing solid defense. As usual, Washington’s defense was a disaster.

The team’s reward for allowing massive scoring nights back-to-back-to-back? The Denver Nuggets and possible league MVP Nikola Jokic.

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.