In the spirit of March Madness, the Charlotte Hornets pulled off an improbable upset win over the New York Knicks, 115-98.
The summary
The Hornets scored the first seven points of the lead and jumped all over the Knicks. They forced the issue inside and took advantage of some underwhelming defense from Karl-Anthony Towns and Precious Achiuwa on the interior. A balanced scoring attack and some impressively physical defense had the Hornets up eight after one.
The second quarter got off to a bit of a rough start for both teams, but Charlotte was able to find their footing first. They played inspired defense and did not let the Knicks get any open looks or move freely with the ball. Every Knicks look was heavily contested and every interior shot was met with resistance. Towns hit a couple of threes to provide a small spark to the Knicks offense, but those were answered a couple minutes later by LaMelo Ball. That started a little flurry of offense that had otherwise been mostly absent for much of the game. At the break, the Hornets led by 10.
The third quarter featured a bit of an offensive outburst from both teams. The game was played at a much faster pace. The Hornets started to get themselves into foul trouble, but it was the Knicks who started getting outwardly frustrated with the officiating. Towns got a tech because he got a little bump while driving for a layup and screamed at the official. That got the crowd riled up and made for a somewhat contentious end to the third. Towns tried to take over from that point, but the Hornets did a good job of bothering him with physicality. They led by 12 heading into winning time.
Moussa Diabate Eurostepped his way to the Hornets’ first bucket of the fourth, then LaMelo hit a real deep three to put the Hornets up 17. The Knicks wouldn’t go away for a long stretch of the fourth quarter. The teams traded haymakers with the Hornets nursing a double digit lead. The momentum seemed to fully turn in the Hornets favor when Mark Williams absolutely swatted the mess out of an OG Anunoby layup attempt and then received a feed from Nick smith Jr for a dunk on the other end.
MARK. WILLIAMS.@MarkWi1liams | @drpepper | 📹 @FDSN_Hornets pic.twitter.com/FwUzoP5BxV
— Charlotte Hornets (@hornets) March 21, 2025
LaMelo followed that sequence with two straight threes to drive home the dagger.
The good
The Hornets defended with a passion last night. They’ve been rather listless at lots of points this season, but they got up for a game with an Eastern Conference contender. They deserved the Knicks poor shooting. It was not a matter of shooting luck. They bothered the Knicks, and Towns in particular, with their physicality. They should defend like this every night next season.
LaMelo Ball played very under control and put forth a quintessential point guard performance. He got teammates involved early and was patient looking for his spots to turn into a scorer. He got his moments in the fourth quarter, and he delivered when it was time to put the game away.
Mark Williams was extra engaged on both ends of the floor. He blocked three shots and was a deterrent on a lot more. He dropped another pretty absurd stat line, and this time I think he really impacted the game the way his box score looks.
Moussa Diabate and Jusuf Nurkic have more modest counting stats, but it felt like they both had big impacts on the flow of the game. Moussa is just a menace with his energy. Nurkic actually made a couple of threes and bothered the Knicks with his bigness.
DaQuan Jeffries has started to string together some nice games. It had to feel extra good doing that against the team he played for last year that jettisoned him to the Hornets.
The Bad
No notes.
What’s Next
The Hornets hop on a plane and fly west to Oklahoma City to take on the west leading Thunder.