**What:** Charlotte Hornets (18-28) (8-13 home) vs Philadelphia 76ers (24-20) (12-7 away)
**When:** 3:00pm Eastern
**Where:** Spectrum Center; Charlotte, NC
**How to watch:** FanDuel Sports Network, NBA League Pass
**Outfitting:** Hornets–Statement (purple), 76ers–Association (white)
**Game Lines:** Hornets -3.5, Hornets money line -162, O/U 227.5
**Injuries:**
Hornets: Collin Sexton-probable (hamstring), Mason Plumlee-out (groin)
76ers: Joel Embiid-out (injury management), Paul George-out (injury management)
The 76ers are a hard team to figure out, in large part because two of their better players have been in and out of the lineup with injuries all season and aren’t playing at their peaks when they do play. Paul George is basically a role player at this point. Joel Embiid can still score the ball, but he’s even less mobile than normal and not making as big a defensive impact as he normally does. And, case in point, neither is playing this afternoon.
With those two not in the lineup, it’s a guard show for Philadelphia. Tyrese Maxey is averaging nearly 30 points per game, third best in the league and doing so on pretty stellar efficiency. He’s also chipping in two steals and a block per game to with that. VJ Edgecombe is having a season that would normally make him a candidate for rookie of the year, but he happens to be in the same rookie class as Cooper Flagg and our very own Kon Knueppel. Quentin Grimes and Kelly Oubre chip in most of the rest of the scoring. Jared McCain is still there but he’s fallen from early season rookie of the year last year to pretty much out of the rotation right now.
The front court is just going to test the Hornets effort and physicality. Andre Drummond will get the start, and he’s had moments where he’s terrorized the Hornets. Adem Bona will back him up, and he’s just another effort guy. Dominick Barlow, Justin Edwards, Trendon Watford, and Jabari Walker eat up the rest of the minutes at the wing and forward spots, and none of them are significant threats offensively, even as spot up shooters (famous last words).
Unless someone unexpected goes off (looking at you, Kelly Oubre), it’s most likely that this is going to be a battle between the Hornets four pronged attack and Tyrese Maxey with some support from Grimes and Edgecombe. The 76ers have been pretty good when those three and Oubre are on the floor together, even without Embiid or George, but once the lineup breaks, things tend to fall apart. That’s especially true whenever Maxey needs to take a breather.
The Hornets definitely have a depth advantage. They’ll try to use that to register their first three game win streak since they did it 371 days ago.
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