Is the Charlotte Hornets’ bench a problem without a solution?

I asked Charlotte Hornets coach Steve Clifford how his bench fared Tuesday against the Portland Trail Blazers. Clifford replied with typical candor.

“We got crushed,” he said.

No argument there. For the entire game, Portland’s reserves outscored Charlotte’s bench 55-41. But the bench-clearing caused by the Blazers’ wide fourth-quarter lead in a 115-98 victory made even that margin misleading. In the first half, the Blazers’ bench outscored its Hornets counterparts 26-10.

Granted, the big difference in all that was one player: Portland guard Allen Crabbe, who finished with 21 points. But that’s the crux of the problem. The Hornets have no one off the bench like Crabbe, and that wasn’t the case last season.

Back then the Hornets had Jeremy Lin subbing at either guard spot and Al Jefferson as the backup center. Either of those guys could have explosive scoring games and there wasn’t cause for Clifford to be reluctant to play either one down the stretch of a close game.

Lately, the Hornets’ bench has been a liability. The only reserve Clifford commended after this game was power forward Frank Kaminsky, who scored 10 points and, in Clifford’s view, played some of his better defense this season.

Clifford has a minutes-management problem, and there might not be a solution. He has to blend starters and reserves in a way that the backups don’t fall apart, but the starters don’t get over played.

The answer is obviously not just playing the starters the entire game. But the mix of starters and reserves leaves little margin for error these days.

Some perspective on this problem: Clifford noted at Tuesday morning’s shootaround that his starters have the sixth-best plus-minus ratio in the NBA this season. If the starters are so good at outscoring their counterparts, and the Hornets are still 23-26 (and on a five-game losing streak), then the bench must be as fragile as $1 wine glasses.

This problem is worsened by center Cody Zeller’s leg injury, which has cost him four consecutive games and will likely keep him out of Wednesday’s road game with the Golden State Warriors. That has put extra stress on the big-man rotation. Clifford responded in part Tuesday by playing Kaminsky some at center in the second half.

Clifford said he’s experimented the past three weeks with various times to break up the starters and which starters to play when. Nothing has been quite satisfactory to mitigate the problem.

The one thing Clifford knows for sure: He can’t play five reserves together for any significant length of time and succeed this season.

Hopefully general manager Rich Cho can pull off a deal before the Feb. 23 trade deadline that addresses the problem. Cho has been good at that in the past, as in grabbing Courtney Lee off Memphis’ roster last season to fill in for the injured Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.

But Clifford can’t count on a roster rescue. He must keep exploring what combination of the current group can be functional enough to keep the Hornets in the playoff race.

It’s going to take improved health. It’s going to take some creativity.

It might take a lot of luck.

This story was originally published February 1, 2017 at 8:49 AM with the headline "Is the Charlotte Hornets’ bench a problem without a solution?."