With Michael Jordan in the house, 3 things we learned as the Hornets beat the Knicks
Arms folded and squirming in his chair on the end of the Charlotte Hornets’ bench next to Ish Smith, the man who cuts the checks was as emotionally invested as anyone.
Michael Jordan was in the house at Spectrum Center on Friday night, getting an up-close view of his team coming off its lengthy road trip loaded with its share of frustrations. Knowing the team’s owner and man considered by many as the best player to ever lace up a pair of sneakers was feet away even conjured up a few jitters in Miles Bridges.
“The greatest basketball player of all time on the bench supporting you, it definitely gives you nerves,” Bridges said. “I came out and missed a few layups, missed three few free throws. But as soon as we started settling in and started playing our game, I feel like that’s when it took a turn. That’s when we started going on our runs. But it’s great to have him out there.”
It took them a while get things kick started and to show up against New York, but Jordan’s Hornets closed out in solid fashion on the strength of a game-ending 13-3 run to pull out a 104-96 win over the Knicks.
“Yeah, I think we found our energy there,” said Gordon Hayward, who had 22 points, seven rebounds and five assists. “I think it’s always difficult when you come back, first game from a long road trip. Not to make excuses for us. We came out flat in the first, but I think we found our legs, we found our energy, we started picking it up in the second quarter and then third quarter made a big run. Crowd was into it. That was a fun game to play in. That was electric and happy to be able to pull this one out.”
Here are three things we learned in the Hornets’ second straight victory:
Oh my, Miles
Bridges’ 24 points were an incredible boost and he took it personally when the Knicks’ Obi Toppin threw down a tomahawk dunk late in the fourth quarter, getting a rise out of plenty of New York faithful in the near capacity crowd. Because after that, Bridges kicked things up a notch or two and fueled things for the Hornets (7-7) in their fourth-quarter surge.
Bridges followed suit with his own right-handed tomahawk stuff, glaring toward New York’s bench, and three-point play after getting fouled on a spin move by Julius Randle were huge in the grand scheme of things and gave them the cushion and breathing room necessary to win.
In total, Bridges accounted for 61.9% of the Hornets’ points through the first 9:29 of the final quarter, netting seven, distributing a pair of assists and also creating six points off assists.
“I felt like it was just the crowd,” Bridges said. “Being in your home arena and to have people cheer for the other team, it definitely is not a good feeling. So our fans showed out, but there were a lot of Knicks fans in there so that got me going. And Coach trusts me. Coach trusts me to put the ball in my hands and Gordon, Terry (Rozier), Kelly (Oubre) hit a few shots, Melo (Ball) hit the game-sealing free throws. It was just a group effort. It was a group effort.”
Defense optional
Two nights after watching Memphis’ Ja Morant go off in the first quarter, exploding for 19 points and knocking down his initial six shots, there was a repeat performance.
Except this time it was someone who made a name for himself around these parts.
Kemba Walker tossed in a season-high 26 points and was unconscious from the start, with the Hornets making very little effort to body him up or chase him off some of his favorite spots on the court he spent eight seasons playing on.
To put Walker’s explosion into perspective: He barely needed a quarter and a half of play to match his entire output of the previous four games. He had been struggling, but the Hornets’ nonexistent resistance quickly got Walker going in a fashion witnessed on many occasions in Uptown.
“Our initial pick-and-roll we were back,” Borrego said. “We just went with our basic coverage. What I’m trying to do as a coach is start in the same defense every game, try not to change constantly for our young team and we started in our base coverage. We went back and Kemba got going and Ja Morant got going the other night and we tweaked it. We adjusted.
“We brought our bigs up and didn’t let them get downhill, showed two bodies and the weak side pulled in. We got good size on him and I think that helped as well. … We just wanted to take out the pick-and-roll earlier than we were in the first quarter.”
No, Ish Smith isn’t benched
For the third straight game, it appeared as if Smith wasn’t going to pull his warmups off.
After seeing action in the season’s first 11 games and being a huge part of the Hornets’ victory in Brooklyn on Oct. 24, Smith was on the outside of the rotation looking in during the final two games of their trip. Borrego didn’t indicate the move had anything in particular to do with Smith’s play.
It’s more about matchups and adding length the 6-foot, 180-pounder doesn’t possess.
“Yeah, I’m playing Terry more at the ‘1,’ the backup ‘1,’ ” Borrego said. “Just to get his rhythm going and it allows us to play a little bit bigger on the perimeter. With Terry sliding to ‘1’ it allows me to play Cody, Kelly out there and bring Jalen into the rotation and I think we are longer, bigger, we’re more defensive with that lineup.”
This story was originally published November 12, 2021 at 9:44 PM.
