Three Charlotte Hornets notched double doubles to help them narrowly escape the Washington Wizards with a victory on a Saturday afternoon.
The Summary
The start of the game looked like a morning shoot around. Both teams poured it on with the Wizards taking an early lead with 17 points in the game’s first four minutes. The Hornets stabilized and scored 13 straight points to take control of the game, but they wouldn’t keep it for long. Collin Sexton checked into the game, gave up a bucket, got called for a technical foul, turned the ball over, then missed a shot, all in a row. Sion James and Grant Williams joined in to help the Hornets close the quarter with four straight empty possessions to help the Wizards close the gap to a single point.
To keep things going, the Hornets turned it over on their first possession of the second quarter. They settled in for real after that. The Wizards had the game tied at one point, but the Hornets scored 15 straight to rebuild their lead. Tre Johnson and Bub Carrington hit three straight threes to close the half and set the margin at eight.
Charles Lee drew up a play for Kon Knueppel coming out of the half, and he splashed a three. Brandon Miller followed that with a mid range jumper to force a quick Wizards timeout. The Hornets built their lead as the threes the Wizards had been chucking all game dried up for a little bit. A few of them went in towards the end of the quarter, but the Hornets still led by 12 heading into the fourth.
Knueppel got a steal on the first possession that led to a Collin Sexton three. Brian Keefe was so annoyed he called a timeout. Coming out of the timeout, LaMelo stole the first pass of the set and ran it down for a layup plus a foul. After that, the Hornets lost all offensive momentum. The Wizards came storming back and cut their deficit down to five by the midway point of the fourth quarter. The Hornets continued to play bad basketball throughout the rest of the game, but they had good enough players to stay ahead. Most of their possessions didn’t even start going towards the basket until there were less than ten seconds left on the shot clock, but Brandon Miller and LaMelo Ball bailed out a few possessions with incredibly difficult shots. The Wizards got second chance points and transition buckets that were significantly easier than the baskets the Hornets were getting for themselves, but they missed a couple of shots late, and Knueppel and Bridges made free throws to finally seal the game in the final seconds.
The Good
The defense was actually pretty good for the most part until the fourth quarter. The Wizards have some young shot makers, so they were able to get hot for a couple little stretches, but they generally took the shots the Hornets wanted them to take. There was one point that I looked in the second half and like two-thirds of the Wizards shot attempts were threes. The Hornets kept them out of the paint and made them rely on tough outside jumpers, and the young Wizards team happily obliged.
LaMelo, Miller, and Diabate all finished with double doubles. The latter two got them with points and rebounds, while LaMelo dished out 11 assists to go with his 20 points.
Brandon Miller continued putting on a clinic of shot creation inside the arc. He brings an element to the Hornets offense that they haven’t had since probably Kemba Walker where he can just take the ball and create a look for himself that the defense can’t stop. And he added seven assists when the Wizards tried throwing extra attention his way.
The big four of Miller, LaMelo, Bridges, and Knueppel did what they’ve been doing during this improved run of play. All chipped in between 16 and 21 points while adding in at least a handful of assists and rebounds apiece. They’ve become quite the cohesive bunch.
The Bad
Turnovers, turnovers, turnovers. The Hornets committed 21 turnovers, and a lot of them were inexcusable. Passes to no one, passes getting deflected by the first defender, and things like that. Just overall sloppy play.
The fourth quarter was terrible basketball. The Hornets lost all of their rhythm and devolved into the Knicks offense against the Pacers in the playoffs. Whoever brought the ball up the court would spend 10-15 seconds battling with their defender before initiating the offense with like eight seconds on the shot clock. It resulted in no points for a while. Only after Miller and Ball brought their shot making into the game were the Hornets able to score enough points to hang on. They seemed to preoccupied with bleeding clock instead of just attacking the Wizards pressure and getting easy baskets.
What’s Next
The Hornets will brave the winter weather over the weekend, and assuming it clears up, they’ll host the 76ers on Monday night.