Hornets play their worst possible game at worst possible time, miss NBA playoffs
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- Charlotte lost the play‑in game to Orlando and failed to make the NBA playoffs.
- Orlando led by 31 at halftime and lived in the paint throughout the game.
- The Hornets’ 10‑season non‑playoff streak continues after Friday’s blowout loss.
Well, that was embarrassing.
In a sudden-death, NBA play-in tournament game that would determine whether Charlotte made the playoffs, it was the Hornets who got stung.
Orlando manhandled Charlotte so thoroughly and so early Friday night that the game was over by halftime, when the Magic had amassed an astonishing 31-point lead. Orlando ended up winning by exactly the same margin, 121-90, and advanced to the playoffs as the Eastern Conference’s No. 8 seed, to play Detroit in a best-of-7 series starting Sunday.
As for the Hornets: In a win-or-go-home game, the Hornets are going home to lick their wounds. They will find themselves back to the NBA lottery once again. The Hornets had a dream season, especially since January, but on Friday they played a nightmarish game. The longest active non-playoff streak in the NBA continues — it’s now been 10 seasons since the Hornets got there.
“This is literally men against boys!” NBA analyst Stan Van Gundy yelled on Amazon Prime in the second quarter, and it sure felt that way. Charlotte got out-physicaled, out-toughed, out-coached, outhustled, outplayed — out-everythinged, really.
Orlando had gone 1-3 against Charlotte in the regular season, but this time the Magic was completely healthy and had a game plan that was perfect.
The Magic overplayed Charlotte outside the three-point line, not allowing the Hornets to score regularly from beyond the arc, where they made a living all season. Instead, Orlando ran the Hornets off the three-point line and funneled Charlotte inside, where it has a more difficult time putting the ball in the hole. The Hornets also were plagued by throwing the ball away or setting illegal screens. In the first half, Charlotte had 14 turnovers and only 13 field goals.
Orlando, meanwhile, may as well have opened its own Sherwin-Williams store in the paint. The Magic lived there. Orlando’s bruising forward Paolo Banchero (25 points) was the best player on the floor, and he got inside whenever he wanted to.
Does this erase all the good work the Hornets did from January onward? It does not.
This is a team that was once 16-28, but finished 44-38 and then won a play-in game Tuesday. They have a talented young core and all five starters under contract for next year. They have more chances to draft first-round talent coming up. They have made themselves relevant and they will get better.
But they laid an egg Friday. There’s no way around that.
As Hornets coach Charles Lee said during one in-game huddle in a moment caught by Amazon’s cameras: “They’re just being more physical, and they’re playing harder than us.”
Yes, they were, and they continued to do so.
It was a beatdown. A humiliating one. I would say I’ve never seen anything like it before, but unfortunately I have. The Hornets have a sorry franchise history of playing poorly in big games. There haven’t been many of those lately to even get excited about, but this one reminded me most of a Game 7 in Miami in the 2016 playoffs.
In that one, Charlotte got blown out by 33 points. In this one, it was 31. The two ugly play-in game losses in 2021 and 2022 were similar beatdowns, with Charlotte losing by 27 and 29 points.
There were a lot of things to fault in this one, but Hornets fans, don’t blame the refs, even though Orlando shot 37 free throws.
Yes, the officials were whistle-happy. No, it didn’t make that much of a difference. Orlando beat Charlotte, not the folks in stripes.
LaMelo Ball had three fouls, two turnovers and zero points late in the second quarter. And when your best player is playing like that, it’s going to be difficult.
But while Ball turned it around in the second half — he scored 21 points in a sizzling third quarter — the Hornets didn’t. They got pounded inside. Orlando seemed to be dunking the ball on about every third possession. Rookie Kon Knueppel’s shooting slump continued.
For Charlotte, all the magic of Tuesday night’s scintillating one-point overtime win over the Miami Heat was long gone.
On this night, it was all Magic.
This story was originally published April 17, 2026 at 10:34 PM.
