The Charlotte Hornets faced a Bucks team without Giannis Antetokounmpo and won the game more handily than the final score would suggest.
The summary
Ryan Kalkbrenner had been questionable coming into the game due to a personal issue. It was revealed that the issue was that he was welcoming a new baby girl to the world. To celebrate, the Hornets fed their rookie a couple of dunks to open the scoring. He and fellow rookie Kon Knueppel helped the Hornets to an early lead that they wouldn’t relinquish. After an explosive first quarter, the Hornets, and the Bucks for that matter, played a pretty uneventful second quarter outside a few minutes of Pat Connaughton revenge. The Hornets led by nine at the break.
The third quarter was pretty similar to the second in that it was somewhat dull, but the Hornets did use a mid-quarter run to further solidify their advantage. Ryan Rollins had a brief little hot spurt in an attempt to answer, but the Bucks couldn’t gain any ground. A few quick buckets early in the fourth gave the Hornets control of the game. A Collin Sexton layup put the Hornets up 18 with just over nine minutes to go and forced a Bucks timeout. The visitors couldn’t make a push after that, and the Hornets coasted to the finish line. A couple of late threes by Pete Nance made the final score look a little more competitive.
The Good
Kalkbrenner celebrated dad life by making all eight of his shots and his single free throw for to tie his career high with 17 points. He chipped in nine boards and three blocks. And then he gets to go celebrate the win with his brand new baby girl. I honestly have no idea how he found the willpower to go to work so soon after the birth of his daughter, but he got that baby bump for playing. He said in his postgame interview that it’s the best day of his life. You love to see it.
The Hornets’ other big, Moussa Diabate was an absolute menace. Somehow his 13 rebounds (7 offensive) seem to undersell how active he was on the boards. He kept a bunch of possessions active and drew a few fouls on the glass as well. And perhaps most encouragingly, he continues to make his free throws.
It was nice to see Pat Connaughton have his best game of the season against the team that dumped him to create salary cap space. You know he feels good about that.
The Bucks are pretty toothless without Giannis, and the Hornets looked like the more dynamic team from top to bottom, even without Brandon Miller and LaMelo Ball. That’s a new sight. Normally a team being without their best player is just enough to make the Hornets competitive. We’re not used to seeing them being so much better than the opposing roster. This team is starting to come together.
The Bad
Knueppel’s gotta work on the lobs. He got comfortable throwing the ball anywhere in the vicinity of the rim for Kaman Maluach at Duke. He doesn’t have quite the luxury on this team, and NBA defenders are more equipped to break those passes up than ACC bigs. I generally like the ideas. He just needs to pick the spots a little better.
The offense as a whole was rather uninspired in the second half. The Bucks went into a zone for a little bit in the third quarter and that bogged the offense down for a little bit.