The Charlotte Hornets had three different players contribute at least six threes in a 145-134 win over the San Antonio Spurs.
The Summary
The Hornets got off to an uncharacteristically hot start to the game. Josh Green ignited it all with three really quick 3-pointers and a fourth a short time later. The team as a whole made eight 3-pointers and only missed one shot inside the arc. They led by 11 after one.
Nick Smith Jr. made the last three of the first quarter, and he rode that all through the second. He hit four straight threes early in the quarter. Josh Green checked back in and hit his fifth. The Hornets took a break from the 3-point barrage to feed Jusuf Nurkic, who muscled his way to a few buckets. After a brief rest, NSJ checked back in late in the corner to hit another three off a really nice dish from LaMelo Ball. LaMelo hit his own super deep three to tie the NBA record for made threes in a half. His half court heave to break the record drew back iron. After all that, the Hornets led by 26 with an astounding 81 first half points.
The Hornets scored seven effortless points to start the second half and force a Spurs timeout. The teams traded baskets as the Hornets started to let up defensively. LaMelo took his turn to go on a ridiculous 3-point shooting spree to help keep the Hornets comfortably ahead despite the Spurs building their entire offense out of 3-point plays. The Spurs tried to dial up their intensity to like a 12, and while it worked at points, it also led to some sloppy play and a lot of fouls. The extraordinarily high scoring quarter ended with the Hornets ahead 121-95.
The franchise record for threes made in a game was snapped by Marcus Garrett of all people with a corner three. The Spurs continued playing unrelenting, “physical” defense. It made for a sloppy, disjointed game. The Hornets did enough to hang on to their lead for long enough that both teams emptied their benches for the final few minutes. The Hornets deep bench struggled to even penetrate the 3-point line and gave up a bunch of points to make the score a lot more respectable than it deserved to be.
The Good
The shooting, obviously. I don’t know what happened to this team. I think I heard them mention on the broadcast that they skipped shootaround yesterday morning. Maybe they’d been practicing too much. I don’t know. But 26-of-46 from three for a team that’s been the worst offensive team in the league for a while is pretty absurd.
Nick Smith Jr. and Josh Green get to share the top individual shoutout. Green lit up the scoreboard in the first quarter while Smith did most of his damage in the second. The two combined for 46 points. Green had a quicker trigger than we’ve typically seen from him while NSJ took some real bold attempts. Green also was a menace defensively.
LaMelo Ball had his best game in quite a while, but more important than that, he looked like he was having more fun than he has in a while. He played with a little bit of extra bounce, and there were moments where he got a little silly. That loose play opened him for a dominant performance. He finished with 27 points and 15 well deserved assists. He shredded the Spurs defense with pick and roll passing, and I particularly liked how he sought out the hot hand when he was facilitating.
Both of the Hornets bigs were entirely too much for the Spurs to handle. Mark Williams and Jusuf Nurkic each only missed one shot, and no one on San Antonio was remotely close to stopping either one of them. There was a point where Williams got played off the floor by Sandro Mamukelashvili’s 3-point shooting, but he thoroughly won the full battle.
Miles Bridges took a back seat to all of the 3-point shooting, but he still ended up with a quiet 21 points, 8 assists, and 7 rebounds.
This roster obviously isn’t talented enough to do this consistently, but last night maybe gave us a peek at what this team could look like if they stock up on good players and keep them all healthy.
The Bad
The Spurs played horrific defense in the first half. They tried to improve in the second half, but they did so with effort and physicality more than execution. It made for a style of play reminiscent of a youth basketball team with better athletes than their counterparts. Just a lot of guys hacking and swiping at the ball and pushing their way through for offensive rebounds. I’ve never seen so many Hornets get knocked to the floor while dribbling the ball. The problem with all that is that the Spurs were mostly allowed to get away with it. The teams somehow got called for the same number of fouls despite a significant disparity in the amount of contact the two teams were initiating.
The defense was pretty poor for long stretches of the game. It was okay at the beginning, but the Hornets seemed to let off the gas with their big lead. They also got badly outworked on the glass.
What’s Next
The Hornets head all the way out to LA to make up the game against the Clippers that was postponed due to the wildfires. That game will happen on Sunday.