Afternoon blues in Uptown. What to take away from Hornets’ loss to the L.A. Clippers
A rare Sunday matinee made for an earlier alarm than normal for most of the Charlotte Hornets, and there was a concern their body clocks would hit the snooze button a few too many times.
The initial assessment had James Borrego figuring things were copacetic.
“Great vibe,” the coach said. “They’re awake. They’re awake. They’re all present, they’re all accounted for. They look rested. I didn’t see a lot of sleep in their eyes. I saw a perkiness about them. That was good, but they’re ready to go. Our group is ready to go.”
Perhaps their mind was willing, but their arms and legs had other ideas. Done in by a rough shooting display and lacking an offensive rhythm with Kelly Oubre missing his second straight game with a sprained ankle, the Hornets lost to the LA Clippers 115-90 at Spectrum Center.
“I think it was the first quarter — we let them feel themselves,” Terry Rozier said. “They’re not a terrible team at all, but they don’t have their two superstars. Nico (Nicolas Batum) didn’t play. They probably were going into the game not even caring what happened and we let them stick around. We let them feel too comfortable early. Sky’s the limit when you got a team feeling good about themselves.”
And the other in a mental slumber that was too deep to overcome.
“We were a little lackadaisical,” LaMelo Ball said. “I feel like that could have played a little role.”
Here are some of the main takeaways from the Hornets’ third loss in their past five games:
COLD AS ICE
Those frigid temperatures engulfing the region had nothing on the Hornets’ ice-cold shooting.
Until a slight rally at the end of the first half, they spent a hefty portion of the second quarter hovering around 30 percent. Their 34 percent showing at halftime felt like a mini upset given how poorly they were from the floor. No one really had their stroke going consistently and that carried over to the second half.
Canning just 32-of-98 attempts, which includes an 8-of-33 showing beyond the 3-point arc, isn’t the best of recipes for success and was quite an anomaly for one of the league’s highest-scoring offenses.
Terry Rozier was inexplicably really off, nailing 4 of 14 shots, and didn’t have an explanation for why.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I could sit up here and say anything, but I really don’t know. Just weren’t making shots today, but I got to be better though. It started with me.”
THE LAMELO SHOW
About the only one who mustered much offensively was LaMelo Ball.
Ball was really effective in the third quarter, when he accounted for 63 percent of the Hornets’ production through the first 11 minutes with eight points, four assists and nine points created off of those assists. That effort spurred Ball to record his 16th double-double of the season on the strength of 23 points and 10 assists to go with six rebounds. Ball
It was also Ball’s fourth consecutive game with at least 20 points, his longest stretch of the season. He posted 20 or more points earlier this season in three consecutive games.
“Pretty much just taking what the defense gave me,” Ball said. “I feel like I had some shots I could have made, so just taking them.”
MASON’S COSTLY FREE-THROW WOES
It has to be mental at this point.
Mason Plumlee has struggled mightily from the free-throw line this season and that didn’t change at all against the Clippers. Plumlee entered the game having connected on 35.6 percent of his chances from the free-throw line, and he wasn’t very good there again. He misfired on all four attempts and it’s a glaring hole in an otherwise decent enough outing in which he posted a double-double.
His issues at the line make it difficult to keep him on the floor in end-of-game situations, which forces the Hornets to play smaller in crunch time. It’s something they have to solve in order to tighten up their fourth-quarter rotations.
“We’ve got to keep working at it,” Borrego said. “We know we are a bottom-tier team at the free throw line, but all you can do is put the work in. That’s all you can do. Go back to the gym, put the work in. We understand it’s not an area of strength of ours and it’s an area of growth for us.”
JALEN MCDANIELS PROGRESSING
The Hornets’ thin bench might be inching closer to receiving reinforcement.
Although Jalen McDaniels sat out for the fifth consecutive game nursing a sprained left ankle, he could return to the fold sometime this week. Borrego didn’t discount McDaniels potentially being available in their next game. That comes Wednesday in Boston.
“We have two days off after this,” Borrego said, “and we’ll see what the next two days look like. I don’t want to say definitively if he’s in or out on Wednesday. Is it possible? First-time ankle injury so we’ll see how he responds. But he’s making progress, and I’m hopeful within the week we’ll get him back.”
This story was originally published January 30, 2022 at 3:41 PM.
