If you’re rooting for Wizards wins, last night’s game was a good one. Russell Westbrook and LeBron James played well for the Lakers, and Washington won anyway because Tomas Satoransky went cautiously berserk , and the team’s bench was productive.

James passed Karl Malone for second all-time in regular season points with 38 points, 10 rebounds and 6 assists. Westbrook chipped in with 22-10-8. The outstanding performances from each wasn’t enough, however, as the Wizards overcame a 16-point deficit to win.

For Washington, the story of the game was Satoransky, who scored 16 points on 6-6 shooting from the floor, 2-2 from three-point range, and 2-2 from the free throw line. He added 3 rebounds, 6 assists and 2 steals in 27 minutes.

For the Lakers, James posted 38 points, 10 rebounds and 6 assists. Westbrook added 22-10-8.

With the victory, the Wizards snapped a six-game losings streak and made things interesting in the West, where the Lakers cling to a slender lead on the New Orleans Pelicans and San Antonio Spurs for a spot in the play-in games.

Even after the win, Washington remains five games behind the Atlanta Hawks for 10th place in the East.

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.