Charlotte Hornets need LaMelo Ball to master the fourth quarter to end losing streak
.JPG "Charlotte Hornets guard LaMelo Ball (2) struggled again in the fourth quarter in the loss at the LA Clippers on Sunday night.")
These are the ones that sting. They gnaw at any inner peace.
And if the Charlotte Hornets aren’t careful, repeat late-game performances like what transpired in Sunday night’s 120-106 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers at Staples Center will severely derail the promise generated by that franchise-best start. Rather than finding the necessary gear and sustaining the execution that had them on the verge of earning their first victory on a grueling five-game road trip, the Hornets’ offense had all the warmth of a November toe dip in the Pacific Ocean.
Deeming it frigid might even be generous.
“Man, it got too stagnant,” Miles Bridges said, trying to explain how the Hornets yielded a decisive, unanswered 22-point fourth-quarter run to the delight of the Staples Center crowd. “I couldn’t make a layup. We were taking tough shots. When we got the lead, we should have settled the offense down, got good shots. But we were rushing it. I don’t know what happened, honestly. But that’s a good defensive team. They sped us up, made us play their game in the fourth and they won.”
As the Hornets (5-6) corkscrew in the wrong direction, dropping four straight and five of their last six games leading into Monday night’s matchup with the Lakers, they are struggling mightily in several areas. Closing games correctly is near the top of that list, right with frequent defensive breakdowns and inopportune, unforced turnovers. An area of strength in many regards a season ago is morphing into an Achilles’ heel, leading to some backbreaking results.
Their most recent frustrating finish happened with four of the Hornets’ five starters on the floor, spoiling a homecoming of sorts for LaMelo Ball since the Chino Hills, Calif., native was playing professionally in front of fans in Southern California for the first time. Soaking in the game’s turning points in that final quarter should be a more educational experience for Ball in particular, and he has to file away the lessons he’s learning on the fly on the job.
He was a non-factor in the waning moments. He took just two shots, didn’t record an assist and had two fouls in the final five-plus minutes.
“We have a 20-year-old that’s just starting to scratch the surface here in the NBA, and how he manages those last six minutes are important,” Hornets coach James Borrego said. “He’s a big part of that. When we subbed him we were up nine. That’s not on him. There’s just a lot of growth for him in those moments — how to manage end-of-game situations. Every one of those, it happens and he’ll just get better and better from there. You’ve got to go through it. You’ve got to go through fire to get better. And he will.”
By first popping open a laptop to view the footage.
“Let’s see. I will probably just go back, look at the film and go from there,” said Ball, who had 21 points, 7 rebounds, and 3 assists but was plagued by foul trouble yet again. “I feel like we had a good lead going and they did little things to cut it down.”
Such as working the ball around and creating for others. And also outhustling them on the glass.
Borrego rode the hot hands that propelled them to a 9-point edge on the strength of a 20-4 run before inserting most of the starters midway through the fourth. Whether it was due to waiting a bit too long to get them back in the game or partially because the Clippers imposed their will on the reserves and everyone else for the final half of the fourth, the Hornets’ offense was out of sorts.
Too much isolation and not enough of a fluid, measured approach. The key to solving that is for Ball to confidently and productively engineer them in the closing minutes more often than not, something he’s undoubtedly still working on.
“Those are two areas of growth for him,” Borrego said. “Being more disciplined and not fouling. Especially early. He’s trying to do the right thing. He’s trying to make winning plays and at times those can be undisciplined plays. His growth will come in these last six minutes and that’s where a lot of these NBA games are won.”
Or in the Hornets’ case lately, lost. The Hornets failed another test to the Clippers. The trick is to ensure they look at those problems with a big red ‘X’ over them, see where they went wrong and immediately rectify it.
“I’d say,” Bridges said, “ ‘just play our game.’ We got ahead by moving the ball and making smart plays. We should’ve just stuck to that. We tried to up our lead instead of being conservative. We know what we got to do. We’re still learning each other. We just got to keep getting better.”
This story was originally published November 8, 2021 at 8:12 AM.
