Wizards Earn Semi-Competitive Loss to Orlando Magic

The Wizards lost another one — this time a reasonably competitive game (at least for a while) against the Orlando Magic. The final margin: 17.

That 17-point final gap sounds big for the words “reasonably competitive,” and those words in this case are not intended to convey the idea that the Wizards ever had a serious chance of winning. They did play Orlando about even in three of the four quarters, though it always felt like the Magic were just better and would eventually go on a run.

That happened in the third quarter, which the Magic “won” by 13.

Although I’ve written variations of this next point many times the past couple years, it bears repeating: this kind of loss is by design. I mean, they gave 33 minutes to JuJu Reese, 31 to Leaky Black, and 20 to Sharife Cooper. This is not to slander any of them — if they work very hard and smart, each of them has the ability to be on NBA rosters and maybe in a team’s rotation for the next several years.

Possibly.

At this point, they’re G-Leaguers, 10-day, and two-way guys. Which is to say, not ready to offer serious competition to a professional team making a push to get their collective stuff together in time for the playoffs. Maybe that will be the Wizards in the future.

Thoughts & Observations

• Trae Young will make his Wizards debut on Thursday against the Utah Jazz. Expect a tight minutes restriction, especially if he’s playing well. This one — and Sunday’s game at the New Orleans Pelicans are must lose for the Wizards.
• After deploying a tiny lineup that got bludgeoned inside by the Houston Rockets, Washington opened even smaller. Kyshawn George was out with a “sprained elbow,” so head coach Brian Keefe started Will Riley, who’s…yet to develop muscles. Somehow, the Wizards (slightly) out-rebounded the Magic.
• Coulibaly picked up two fouls in the first two minutes of the game. Keefe left him in, and he committed his third foul with five minutes left in the period. Given the team’s goals, and the reality that he wasn’t going to play more than 24 minutes, I thought Keefe should have let him continue playing — even with three fouls in the first quarter. Let him get the experience of defending through foul trouble.
• The Wizards struggled frequently to get shots in the halfcourt. They had back-to-back shot clock violations in the first quarter. In the second, they committed consecutive backcourt violations.
• Related: a recurring entry in my game notes was something along the lines of “nice move (or shot), but…” and the “but” would be followed by something about how hard the Wizards had to get a difficult shot. I made that note about Coulibaly, Tre Johnson, Will Riley, Bub Carrington, and Jaden Hardy.
• Related-related: Difficult shot-making is valuable and necessary. But it cannot be the foundation of an efficient NBA offense. Much more valuable is the ability to generate easy shots. The Wizards aren’t there right now. It’s something that may come — they’re gaining experience, and they can improve with work on their bodies, skills, and decision-making.
• From what I’ve seen so far, Reese has a very long ways to go to have an NBA career. He’s an undersized center whose best skill seems to be passing. He’s not a rim protector (by aptitude or athleticism). He was ineffective as a switch defender. He’s not nearly strong enough to bring high-level physicality.
• Riley scored on a first-quarter possession that involved some fine moves and aggression. And it drove me nuts because it should have been illegal. On the move, I thought he double-dribbled once and committed at least three carries. Good move based on the way the NBA is currently officiated. It should have been a turnover.
• From the notebook: Orlando’s offense is an incoherent mess.
• Jaden Hardy is very confident in his ability to make shots.
• Orlando shot 1-12 from three in the first half. They finished the game 10-25, which means they hit 9-13 in the second half. The quality of looks didn’t seem to change — just the result.
• Coulibaly has been more aggressive offensively the past few weeks. One possession last night was a bit worrisome — he tried to post up on Tristan da Silva, got forced into a weirdly contorted fling, and got his shot blocked.
• Every time I see Orlando play, I’m a bit underwhelmed by Paolo Banchero. That was true even last night when he had 37 points and 6 assists with very good efficiency. He seems heavily reliant on difficult shots and inefficient mid-rangers. Last night, he took mid-range faders when being defended by Riley — where Banchero has big size and strength advantages. I think center is the best position for Banchero and the Magic, except that his lack of rim protection might undermine their defense more than he’d benefit their offense.
• Going by the Game Score metric on basketball-reference, this was the fifth best game of Jett Howard’s career. He scored 12 points on six shots.

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).

The four factors are measured by:

• eFG% (effective field goal percentage, which accounts for the three-point shot)
• OREB% (offensive rebound percentage)
• TOV% (turnover percentage — turnovers divided by possessions)
• FTM/FGA (free throws made divided by field goal attempts)

Stats & Metrics

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).

PPA is a per possession metric designed for larger data sets. In small sample sizes, the numbers can get weird. 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 sometimes producing weird results.

POSS is the number of possessions each player was on the floor in this game.

ORTG = offensive rating, which is points produced per individual possessions x 100. League average so far this season is listed in the Four Factors table above. 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%. Median so far this season is 17.7%.

ORTG and USG are versions of stats created by former Wizards assistant coach Dean Oliver and modified 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.

+PTS = “Plus Points” is a measure of the points gained or lost by each player based on their efficiency in this game compared to league average efficiency on the same number of possessions. A player with an offensive rating (points produced per possession x 100) of 100 who uses 20 possessions would produce 20 points. If the league average efficiency is 115, the league — on average — would produced 23.0 points in the same 20 possessions. So, the player in this hypothetical would have a +PTS score of -3.0.

Players are sorted by total production in the game.