The Hornets lost to the winless Magic in Orlando. What went wrong for Charlotte?
Despite not having two of their best scorers and one of their top defenders, the Charlotte Hornets were holding their own and turned more than a few heads around the league in the first few games of the season.
Until Friday night.
The Hornets got their first look at Duke product Paolo Banchero, the No. 1 overall pick in the June draft, and had trouble containing the lanky, athletic swingman while getting thoroughly outclassed by previously winless Orlando, 113-93, at Amway Center.
“Disappointed,” coach Steve Clifford said. “We’ve got to find a way. That’s the third game in a row where we’re down double digits early in the game, and we’ve got to get off to better starts. I think playing hard, intensity will be a strength of our team. It wasn’t tonight.
“That happens sometimes, but we have to get to an intensity level, a purpose level, (and) also offensively where we know what we have to do so we don’t give so many possessions away.”
To compound matters after a frustrating evening in Central Florida, the Hornets have Stephen Curry and the defending champion Golden State Warriors waiting for them in uptown to complete the tail end of a back-to-back on Saturday night.
“It’s not great,” Gordon Hayward said. “Tonight was not a good night for us. But those things happen. You are going to have a couple of those throughout the season. Hopefully, we can wipe this one and get ready for (Saturday).”
Here’s what we learned in the Hornets’ third loss in their past four games:
Off target
Through their first four games of the season, the Hornets (2-3) were surprisingly among the leaders in several offensive categories despite not having the services of LaMelo Ball, Terry Rozier and Cody Martin for most of their games.
They were the leaders in 3-point percentage, sat second in field-goal percentage and ranked fourth in offensive rating. Things were going their way
That wasn’t the case against the Magic.
A 31.1% showing through three quarters was compounded by their 20.7% output from 3-point range. Their numbers were anemic, leaving them little chance to hang with Orlando.
Offensively, the Hornets were scrambling often and never got into any sustainable flow or rhythm. They appeared discombobulated at times, leading to too much individual play when things broke down.
“I think shooting also starts with readiness, intensity, concentration,” Clifford said. “Your best offensive nights are always going to be when you’re more ready, just like your better defensive nights. We didn’t have readiness to start the game. I didn’t give them a good enough plan.
“We never really found our way. And they played very well, too. So, it’s a combination of both.”
Sunk in the second
When the Hornets look back at the footage, they won’t see very much to be enthused about, certainly not in a dreadful second quarter.
In going 3 for 17 from the floor and knocking down just 1-of-8 attempts beyond the 3-point arc, they netted only 11 points in the quarter and were outscored by 17. It probably felt even worse than that thanks to their six turnovers and the Magic closing the quarter with a 13-0 run.
A 21-point halftime deficit had the Hornets in a cavernous hole from which they could not recover.
“It felt just stagnant on offense, predictable,” Hayward said. “And when are you just trying to attack one-on-one against a team that is that athletic, that long, you are just hoping to make shots. And we couldn’t throw it in the ocean there in the second quarter and that hurt us.”
Beat up inside, again
It’s been a common refrain for the Hornets through the first week-plus: Fixing a leaky defense inside has to be a priority. Especially since that’s a huge issue they identified as one of the reasons they didn’t get it done with this group last season and got bounced in the first game of the play-in tournament.
Orlando, which racked up a season-high 28 assists, did just about whatever it wanted within close range and had open paths to the basket far too often. The Magic finished with a 56-38 edge in the paint.
That can’t continue if the Hornets have any legitimate shot at realizing any aspirations of ending the franchise’s playoff drought.
“I feel like the most important thing we have to do is just stop the ball,” Nick Richards said. “That’s first and that’s priority. Once we just stop the ball, we are going to figure it out. These last two games weren’t really our best games. We are going to get better from it, and I feel like once we just stop the ball we’ll be fine.”
This story was originally published October 28, 2022 at 9:33 PM.
