The Washington Wizards are 26-33. That’s not good, but it is good enough. They are the official 10th seed in the Eastern Conference. That means they’re in the postseason, and with two road play-in wins, they’ll be in the playoffs.
They’ve won 7 straight games, their longest win streak since 2016-17, and 9 out of 10. They currently have a full game lead over the Toronto Raptors and Chicago Bulls, but lose the tiebreaker to both teams. They’ll need a distinct record advantage over either and both teams to finish ahead. The next team behind them is the Cavaliers, who are 5 games back. That’s distant with 13 to play, but the Wizards play them 3 more times still, starting this Sunday.
Russell Westbrook
The former MVP leads the NBA in assists, is 9th in rebounding, and is 25th in points this year. He also leads the association in turnovers. However, his turnaround has been the number one catalyst for the Wizards sudden success. Early on, Russ was bad. No need to mince words. His third-in-the-NBA usage is nearly impossible to win with if it’s playing poorly. Hence, the ‘Zards started 6-17.
Now, he’s firing on all cylinders. In these last ten games: 22.4 points, 13.9 rebounds, 12.6 assists, 1.5 steals on 47.5/36.4/67.8 shooting! And he’s playing 37.4 minutes a night! We were wondering if his physical ability was lost over the hill, and now he’s showing himself to still be the (albeit older) specimen that he was in Oklahoma City.
You’d be remiss to not talk about turnovers with Brodie, but his assist:usage is well above-average, which means you take the good with the bad. Assist:turnover is a bad stat; those things aren’t opposites, but he’s high-end there too. Better than LeBron James, Luka Doncic, Stephen Curry, Ben Simmons, and John Wall to name a few. This is all just the Russell Westbrook Experience™.
The Gafford Section
Yes. Bradley Beal has been consistently tremendous. That is not being overlooked. But like I said, it’s been consistent. He was tremendous in losses. He's equally tremendous now. Russ and Gaff performing this well has coincided with the .900 ball Washington is playing, so they warrant divulging.
Gafford posted his Wizards career-highs of 19 points and 10 rebounds against Golden State on Wednesday. In ten games* as a Wizard, he’s posting 11.2 pts 6.2 reb 2.0 blocks 0.6 stl 1.4 fouls in 17.6 min. 65.7/0/60.6 shooting splits. Those per 36s essentially just double each figure.
*Gafford's ten games are not the same 9-1 ten games, because he missed time with an ankle injury.
Daniel Gafford is:
-Leading the entire NBA in field goal percentage defended at the rim since the trade deadline
-Leading the entire NBA in block % since the deadline. 58th percentile in steal % to boot
-99th percentile in at-the-rim field goal percentage (on offense)
-92nd percentile in points per shot attempt, and he was 96th and 93rd on the bulls, with more volume
While he’s yet to take a shot outside of 14 feet, shooting 65.7% is fiiiine efficiency, especially with that ATR shooting percentage, and shooting almost average from 4-14 feet (short mid-range). His TOV% was awful in Chicago, but has gone from 13th to 76th percentile.
STILL, just 18 minutes a game. And only in as many games as I have fingers. Small Sample Size Alerts are booming and bellowing everywhere.
Gaff hurts the defensive rating by 3.1 points when he’s on the court. SSS goes both ways, hopefully, and he plays with the bench a good amount. The other defense stats give stupendous promise. Russ loves him, and Russ spoon-feeds bigs. He's the most athletic Wizards center of the past 10 years at least. Being a lob threat alone helps the O.
He averages 5.2 fouls per 36 over his career, but is posting just 2.9 at the moment. Expect that to regress to the mean, and be part of the reason why he won’t suddenly get Wilt Chamberlain minutes, despite his clear impact and production.
Stat nugget: Gafford already has received more Russell Westbrook assists than any teammate he has ever had. More than any Chicago Bulls player. In 10 games.
Stat nugget: Daniel Gafford is the first Wizard since Marcin Gortat to post back-to-back four block games (against New Orleans and Detroit). (Via Locked On Wizards podcast)
He’s not a stud for sure. We can’t honeymoon a new acquisition when he hasn’t done anything bad yet. But there is so much there. And a lot of the Wizards’ newfound success has been through him. Thus, future success is likely contingent on this sustaining.
Other players
Robin Lopez is 8th amongst all bigs in points per shot attempt, and leads the entire NBA in post-up points per possession. This is all while being a metrically solid defender. He has improved since Gafford came along to lighten the load, much like his role when Thomas Bryant was healthy. Lopez isn’t the worst possible option as a backup, and can still do things at the NBA level.
Garrison Mathews and Davis Bertans are 14th and 15th respectively amongst all players in points per shot attempts. The Wizards have found a couple shooters. Bertans is up to 40.7% from three on the year (7.5 attempts) despite a start so bad that fans wanted to trade him for cap relief. He’s a top-five floor stretcher. His gravity is unreal, and he takes probably the deepest average shot of any player in the association when you consider only 9% of his shots are 2s. (If you know where to find those shot distance numbers, please contact me. Thank you sincerely.)
Rui Hachimura has not been a big part of the ten-game stretch. He’s missed the last three with a minor knee injury, and only scored in double figures in two of the seven he played. But, the stretch immediately preceding was the best of his entire career. Over ten games, he put up 20.2 points and 7.8 rebounds on 52.8/40.6/82.6 shooting. He looked like he was finally finding the NBA groove, and growing out of young player pains. If he doesn’t rush back early, he definitely should and will be the Wiz’ third-best player, and a quality one at that.
Ish Smith’s return has not accidentally coincided with winning either. After missing 24 games straight, he returned two games before the 9-1 stretch started. Ish is 96th percentile in assists:usage ratio, and 86th percentile in assist %, meaning the amount of his teammates’ made baskets that he assists on (Russ leads the NBA, and Beal is also 96th percentile). Smith is shooting 50% from the field and 45.5% from three in his 12 games back.
Team as a whole
The Wizards are bad at rebounding: 27th defensively, which is the important one. They’re 14th offensively, which is solid. Russ is the best offensive rebounding guard in the NBA (go figure).
Big news: the Wizards’ defense (15th in the NBA!) has officially surpassed the offense (24th). The team is still a -3.0 net.
The ‘Zards lead the NBA in pace, as they did last year. And this year, their point guard is the biggest transition wrecking ball we’ve ever seen.
The Wizards offense takes more mid-range shots than any other team. They are 24th in shots at the rim frequency and 29th in three-point frequency. All three of those things: really bad. And they’re 6th in ATR shooting percentage. Scott Brooks: why? The team has to be more aggressive and find better looks. They have the ability and the playmaking to do both.
STAT OF THE DAY
No team allows less shots at the rim than... your Washington Wizards. Seriously. That is mind-boggling. Read that over. Let that breathe. It needs a minute. Process.
The team has no perimeter D. Russ and Beal are the guards, and Rui + Davis Bertans play significant wing minutes. So everyone is getting by.
The Wizards’ opponents also shoot more mid range than any other team. This coupled with the ATR frequency suggests that the team collapses inside incredibly. They don’t have good perimeter help D, which hopefully suggests that that weakness is purposefully to the benefit of something. It seems like it is: they have amazing interior help D. Whichever help D is more important is philosophical, so we won’t hash all that out today.
The rim deterrence and mid-range abundance of the Wizards' opponent cannot be overstated in terms of importance, and to me is the largest single reason for the defensive success, which has driven the entire team’s success. Give Scott Brooks credit (ugh, I know), as well as the Wizards’ defensive personnel.
In 7 of these 10 games, the defense has outperformed the offense per 100 possessions. That’s unusual for any ‘Zards team, but it works. And that’s what they need to do to continue winning. The offense will come. When you’re led by Russell Westbrook and Bradley Beal, and supplemented with Rui Hachimura, Davis Bertans, Ish Smith, Robin Lopez, Raul Neto, and Garrison Mathews, there are buckets to be found. The team’s heretofore offensive performance has belied its ability, meaning it’s possible this team can get better still.
Or, they can be the biggest disappointment of all 30 teams, like they were before April 7. Who knows? All I do know? ‘Zards are hot.
**All stats listed as percentiles are per Cleaning The Glass, cleaningtheglass.com**
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