**What:** Charlotte Hornets (26-29) (12-14 home) vs Houston Rockets (33-20) (15-13 away)
**When:** 7:00pm Eastern
**Where:** Spectrum Center; Charlotte, NC
**How to watch:** FanDuel sports Network, NBA League Pass
**Outfitting:** Hornets–City (yellow/orange), Rockets–City (white)
**Game Lines:** Hornets +2.5, Hornets +160, O/U 216.5
**Injuries:**
Hornets: Miles Bridges-out (suspension), Moussa Diabate-out (suspension), Coby White-out (calf), Liam McNeeley-out (ankle)
Rockets: Fred VanVleet-out (knee), Steven Adams-out (ankle)
Both teams come into this game with a little more drama than they probably would’ve liked coming out of what should have been a restorative all star break. LaMelo Ball wrapped up his break by [getting in a car crash](https://atthehive.com/2026/02/18/lamelo-ball-involved-in-car-crash-in-uptown-charlotte-hornets/). Meanwhile, Kevin Durant is potentially dealing with some fallout after allegedly getting exposed for burner accounts on Twitter than made disparaging remarks about past and current teammates. Apparently [it’s pretty obvious](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1r6jo66/can_someone_provide_a_good_breakdown_of_the_kd/) that the account(s) in question belong to KD, and he didn’t deny the accusations when asked about it in post-practice media availability. I don’t know all the dynamics of an NBA locker room, but I’m sure it’s not everybody’s favorite thing to see their Hall of Fame say that he basically hates playing with them.
On the floor, we get a rematch of a slugfest in which the Hornets prevailed just a couple of weeks ago. In that game, only Durant was really able to get going for Houston. He had 31, Jabari Smith had 17, and no other Rocket reached double figures. Alperen Sengun and Amen Thompson did a whole lot of nothing. It might be a bit much to expect that again though. Moussa Diabate is a match-up problem for the slower footed Sengun. He’s going to be a lot more comfortable being guarded by Ryan Kalkbrenner, Grant Williams, and PJ Hall.
The Hornets will need their offense to come to play to make up for the absence of Diabate and Bridges. They got limited contributions from Brandon Miller because of early foul trouble. Hopefully he’s going to make up for lost time. LaMelo Ball and Kon Knueppel, just do your thing.
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