The Charlotte Hornets understand what’s wrong with them. It’s led to 2 straight losses
.JPG "Charlotte Hornets’ Gordon Hayward, from left, sits on the bench with Mason Plumlee, Miles Bridges, LaMelo Ball and Terry Rozier during the second half of their 114-92 loss at the Golden State Warriors in San Francisco on Wednesday.")
With the latest frustrating effort in the books and their continuously bad patterns failing to cease, James Borrego summed up the Charlotte Hornets’ situation.
“We are a ways away from what we need to be,” the coach said. “The 3-0 start feels like a ways ago. But we are capable of that. We can play at that level. We’ve shown that. We’ve just got to be more consistent with our effort, our execution.”
That’s been the Hornets’ Kryptonite through the first two weeks of the season. They are showing a bit of a split personality, see-sawing between productive performances as evidenced by their rough 114-92 loss to Golden State at Chase Center on Wednesday night. Considering the small sample size, it’s not quite hit the scale of an overly alarming trend just yet. But it’s inching closer.
Hiccups are adding up and the Hornets (5-4) know it. They had alternated wins and losses in their last four outings leading into their matchup with the Warriors, due in part to their up-and-down behavior.
“I think that we have flashes of really good moments and moments where they are getting anything that they want,” Hornets forward Gordon Hayward said. “So I think we need to be better defensively. I think one of our biggest problems is that sometimes we don’t give our defense a chance just with our offense. If you are forcing tough shots or (making) turnovers, it’s hard to defend a team like Golden State.
“They are really dangerous in transition and then their crowd gets into it, it gets loud and it starts to snowball on you. So, I think that it is a little bit of that, but you’ve got to be better offensively moving the ball and sharing the ball, taking better shots.”
None of those good things transpired in a nightmarish 15-point third quarter against the Warriors, certainly not during the nine-plus minute portion in which the Hornets didn’t score a field goal. Making the extra pass and swinging it around until it was deposited into the hands of an open teammate didn’t happen often enough.
Only half of their 24 made shots through three quarters came on assists. Compare that to 36 assists they totaled against Portland on Sunday (their last victory) or even the 28 amassed in Monday’s loss to Cleveland.
When the Hornets are at their best, everyone is involved. Stagnant isolation featuring shot-clock burning dribbling or hoisting long jumpers without searching for a better option isn’t their strength. And they sometimes get sucked into playing like that, leading to their demise.
Consistently reading the defense is an issue. Improvement there is a necessity.
“I just think (it’s) better shot selection, better rim decisions, shooting when you are open, snap decisions, drive-and-kick, next person drives and kicks,” Hayward said. “I think you have to credit them a little bit. Their defense is tough, but that’s what they want you to do. ... But we certainly can be better and we will be moving forward. We just have to trust each other.”
Even with all their improved depth, the Hornets don’t have much wiggle room with the number of mistakes they can compile without it hindering their chances. They still have their flaws and they can be exposed in grinding halfcourt situations.
Hustle and desire have to be cranked up more regularly. They can’t take quarters — or even possessions for that matter — off. It haunted them in all four of their defeats.
“We always talk about doing the little things to win the games because we know that the margin of error to lose our games is really slim,” Miles Bridges said. “But we have to just make winning plays, get all the 50/50 balls, (allow) no offensive rebounds, and just try to get key stops.
“We have to focus on getting consecutive stops in a row. We will get a stop and the team will come down and hit a 3, get a dunk and then boost that momentum. We want to come out and just stay focused for 48 minutes. I feel like that’s our biggest challenge right now.”
Bridges isn’t omitted from that, either. He acknowledged his own flaws.
“If a couple of guys don’t touch it on offense — including myself, I do sometimes if I don’t touch it for a long time — I let that dictate my defense and that’s a no-no,” Bridges said. “You can’t do that. So I feel like we’ve been doing that too much and that’s why we’ve been losing games. But we are going to get it right. We are going to watch film and we don’t have any selfish guys on our team. So I’m not really worried about our offense. We’ve just got to bring it every day on defense.”
This story was originally published November 4, 2021 at 8:26 AM.
