The Charlotte Hornets continued their demolition of the entire NBA with a thorough end to end beatdown of the Boston Celtics, 118-89.
LaMelo Ball banged two triples and scored eight quick points to give the Hornets an early lead. Kon Knueppel broke out of his mini-slump and joined the party. Coby White chipped in at the end of the quarter, and all of that combined with some absolute perfection on the defensive end gave the Hornets an impressive 12 point lead after one. That conjures into the second quarter with the Celtics not cracking the 30 point mark until over halfway through the second quarter. By that point, the Hornets already at 49 points. The visitors held that stiff arm into the half with the help of 10 straight points from Brandon Miller in latter part of the second quarter.
A personal run from Derrick White closed that gap, but the Hornets weathered that with their own run from Knueppel and White. The teams went back and forth in a pretty scrappy third quarter. The Celtics made up a little ground again a little later, but Charles Lee’s group again had a response. Ryan Kalkbrenner had a dunk on Hugo Gonzalez’s head then swatted the life out of a Jaylen Brown layup on the other end. Brown was called for a technical foul after voicing his frustration with the officials. White knocked down that free throw then slashed to the basket for an and-1 and a four point possession to put the Hornets back up 23 going into the fourth.
Brandon Miller jumped a passing lane and cruised in for a dunk to start the fourth quarter, which is exactly what he did to start the third. Moussa Diabate did the same thing a couple possessions later. That was followed by a pair of LaMelo Ball threes, the second of which was a step back over Jaylen Brown from about 30 feet out. That put the Hornets up 26 with six minutes to play, and it felt like that effectively put the game out of reach. The teams emptied their benches a few minutes later, and the Hornets cruised to their 10th straight road win and a winning record.
All of it. Where do we even start?
Let’s start with the defense. I’ve been giving the Hornets flowers for their play on this side of the ball lately, and they took it to another level in this game. The Celtics didn’t get any easy looks at all. The Hornets walled up the paint, and whenever the Celtics tried to attempt a shot around the rim, it felt like they were doing so with arms contesting the shot from all angles. But even with that, they still got out to the 3-point line and took away one of the Celtics’ biggest weapons. There’s no selfishness on that end of the floor. If a shot needs to be contested, whoever is in the area is going to contest. There is no “not my guy, not my problem.” There was one play, as minor as it was that stood out to me. Brandon Miller had come over to Jaylen Brown after Brown got rid of the ball, Miller started to retreat towards his man, but he saw that a Celtic was about to shoot an open three. He changed course, got a hand up, and forced the miss. It’s little things like that that show how locked in this group is on that end of the floor.
The biggest bugaboo the Hornets have had this season is their turnovers. They needed to keep it clean against a team as good as the Celtics, and that they did. They only turned the ball over five times and gave up five points off those turnovers. And they did so while still playing free flowing, cohesive basketball. They were locked in, just like they were on the defensive end.
It was nice to see Kon Knueppel bounce back after a little two game slump. He had missed four straight free throws and was 3-of-14 from three over his previous two games. He got a couple of free throws to go down early and shot the ball as confidently as ever. He led the team with 20 points and made half of his eight 3-point attempts. You don’t typically see that kind of bounce back from such a young player.
Coby White is a stud. There was a little bit of handwringing about his statistical similarity to Collin Sexton, who the Hornets traded to acquire him. He’s been proving what Jeff Peterson and company saw in him. He plays with so much pace and urgency, and that is contagious throughout the team. He’s quickly found his rhythm after missing time with an injury and needing to acclimate to his new team. He’s a mismatch against just about anybody’s bench unit. The Celtics had no answer for him, and I’m sure we’re going to find that to be the norm for the rest of the season.
LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller, and Moussa Diabate all had relatively quiet statistical games by their standards (shout out 6 assists for Moussa though), but they all played fantastic basketball. Moussa did his usual thing wreaking havoc all over the place. He had one possession early on where he got switched onto Payton Pritchard, forced him to change directions a couple of times, then ultimately pressured the Celtics guard to dribble the ball off his own foot out of bounds. Miller and LaMelo both let the game come to them and fit within a perfect team brand of basketball.
Absolutely nothing. 10 out of 10. No notes.
First, a little inventory of where we are:
* The Hornets are currently on a league best six game winning streak, and all of them are by more than 15 points
* The Hornets have won 10 straight games on the road
* The Hornets have won 16 out of their last 19 games
* The Hornets are 20-2 with their preferred starting five
* The Hornets have a winning record after being 12 games under .500 about six weeks ago
Up next is a return home to a Spectrum Center crowd that’s going to give them a hero’s welcome. They’ll take on a Heat team that will be on the second night of a back to back. That same Heat team is the next team on the standings that the Hornets have in their crosshairs.
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