Trae Young gets the best of the Hornets and LaMelo Ball as Hawks end Charlotte’s season
.JPG "Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young (11) drives to the basket past Charlotte Hornets forward P.J. Washington (25) during the first half of an NBA play-in basketball game Wednesday, April 13, 2022, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)")
Sets of train tracks run parallel to State Farm Arena, creating an avenue for freight cars to motor past the site and rumble through the city’s midtown area.
A train blocked the tracks as the Charlotte Hornets’ second team bus pulled up to the venue with under two hours remaining until tip-off, which forced many of the players and coaches on board to get off and walk so their pregame routine wouldn’t be interrupted. Perhaps it was a bit of foreshadowing.
The Hornets’ postseason plans were derailed Wednesday night.
Doomed by ineffectiveness on both sides of the ball, the 10th-seeded Hornets were run out of the building by ninth-seeded Atlanta 132-103 in their play-in tournament matchup. It was a worse result than a year ago when the Hornets lost by 27 in Indiana.
“I feel like we improved so much this year, and for the same thing to happen again is definitely frustrating,” Miles Bridges said, “because I didn’t see myself anywhere else tomorrow expect another play-in game and then in the playoffs. But that’s not the case.”
Instead, they’re forced to ponder what went wrong. Again.
“S - - -, whenever you lose and your season is over with it’s never a great feeling,” Terry Rozier said. “So we are not happy, but at the same time we can’t do nothing about it. We can’t do nothing about it. We had a great season, a lot of memories. But that’s all that we can hold onto now. It ain’t hit me yet.”
Here are some of the main takeaways from the Hornets’ disappointing season-ending loss:
NO ‘D’
Despite their struggles against the Hawks, offense has rarely been a problem for the Hornets. It’s their effort on the other side of the ball that constantly gets them in trouble.
That didn’t change at all against the Hawks and they paid for it.
Defensively, the Hornets were atrocious. Atlanta received too many open looks and the Hornets were constantly scrambling to chase down 3-point shooters, a common sight throughout the season. They gave the Hawks plenty of room to shoot and were also poor on the interior, yielding a double-double to Clint Capella before halftime.
Things weren’t any different in the second half and that became clear when De’Andre Hunter, stockpiled 13 points in the decisive 41-point third quarter.
“Their coach did some good stuff,” LaMelo Ball said. “We used the blitz last game. They pretty much adjusted on that. I feel like that was a good move by them. Just the extra swings, getting back door cuts and stuff with most of their passes. They were getting a lot of open shots.”
MILES BRIDGES EJECTED
Emotions boiled over midway through the fourth quarter when Miles Bridges got tossed.
Bridges was clearly annoyed with James Williams after the official called a foul on him during a drive to the basket by De’Andre Hunter. Bridges said something to Williams and got slapped with a technical foul, angering him further.
“Miles Bridges was given his first technical foul because he was upset about a no call at one end, followed by a personal foul and goaltend on the other end of the floor,” crew chief James Capers said in a pool report, “and he aggressively approached the official with a clenched fist.”
So Williams quickly hit Bridges with another technical and threw him out of the game, which ticked Bridges off. He had to be held back from charging at Capers and on his way back to the locker room area he hurled his mouthpiece in the stands and it struck a fan in the face.
“He was ejected because he used profanity directed at the official,” Capers said, “and it was his second technical foul. By rule that is an automatic ejection.”
Bridges was contrite about the incident and bothered he didn’t keep his cool.
“I was upset about a call,” he said. “A couple of calls really. And I let my temper get the best of me. That was definitely the wrong thing to do by throwing my mouthpiece. I was aiming for the guy that was screaming at me and it hit a little girl. So that’s definitely unacceptable on my part and I take full responsibility. I’m ready for any consequence that the NBA gives me. That’s on me.”
BENCH DOESN’T SHOW UP
Depth was one of the Hornets’ strengths throughout the season. Their reserves often injected them with some energy and infused the offense.
But they didn’t show up Wednesday and, other than Montrezl Harrell, were mostly a non-factor. Although the final tally between both benches was 40-24 in favor of Atlanta, it felt worse than that. Like their starting counterparts, the reserves struggled offensively and couldn’t cut into their hefty deficit.
Kelly Oubre went scoreless through the first three quarters and even missed a dunk in the fourth, yet another frustrating moment in a night filled with them.
“We didn’t have much rhythm with the starters or the bench,” coach James Borrego said. “I believe the reason why we’re shooting here today is because of that bench. They’ve been positive for us all year. We played 10 deep and unfortunately we didn’t get much support there. But we’ll figure out the bench as we go this summer.”
TRAPPING TRAE
In their meeting last month, the Hornets at times sent two people toward Trae Young after he crossed halfcourt. Borrego figured it would be an effective strategy to keep the ball out of Young’s hands.
The Hornets went with that strategy once more and it was good enough to thwart Young from getting into a decent rhythm early on. Young misfired on 10 of his 13 first-half attempts, including a pair from 3-point range.
When Cody Martin was in the game, Borrego had him guarding Young at times and he did a noteworthy job of bottling the Hawks’ star point guard as much as possible. Young had to work hard to get his shots off against Martin’s length.
But even with Young’s sluggish offense, the Hawks still led by eight points at halftime and that had to be somewhat discouraging. Young broke through in the second half and had 13 points in the third quarter, leaving the Hornets without any real chance of a miracle comeback.
Young finished with 24 points and 11 assists in 34 minutes.
“It’s the same defense we played when Trae scored nine points and we won the game in Charlotte,” Borrego said. “So nothing changed on our end. They did a good job of moving the ball and they made shots. When you put two guys and you blitz the pick-and-roll, you are going to give up something somewhere. And unfortunately they found some open stuff and our guys were scrambling.”
This story was originally published April 13, 2022 at 9:44 PM.
