Charlotte Hornets clinch win over Brooklyn Nets with late free throws

It took a while for the Charlotte Hornets to figure out this rebounding thing.

They were playing one of the NBA’s better rebounding teams, the Brooklyn Nets, on Wednesday. They were coming off a game in which they allowed the New York Knicks to score 20 second-chance points. But they cleaned up their act, out-rebounding the Nets 49 to 37 in a 116-111 victory at Time Warner Cable Arena.

This victory got the Hornets back to .500 ball at 6-6. They are back home Friday against the Philadelphia 76ers.

The game was finally settled with 17 seconds left when Marvin Williams hit two free throws to extend Charlotte’s lead to six.

[Box score: Nets versus Hornets]

Three who mattered

Nic Batum: After not making a basket until the fourth quarter Tuesday, he topped 20 points for the fourth game in the past five.

Thaddeus Young: He was far too athletic for the Hornets’ power forwards to guard.

Frank Kaminsky: The Hornets rookie reached double-figure scoring for the first time in his NBA career.

Observations

▪ The NBA fined Hornets forward Marvin Williams $15,000 Wednesday, resulting from the fourth-quarter play that got Williams ejected against the New York Knicks. Williams delivered a hard foul on the Knicks’ Lou Amundson. The league fined Williams for hitting Amundson’s head with his elbow.

▪ Williams said Tuesday post-game that he didn’t think what he did rose to the level of a flagrant-2 ejection: "As far as the flagrant 2, I looked at it three times and I don’t think I did anything to get ejected. Was it a hard foul? Absolutely. Was it probably a flagrant 1? Absolutely. But I don’t think I did anything to get ejected.”

▪ Wednesday’s Nets game was the start of seven consecutive home games, the longest homestand in franchise history.

▪ A funny moment in the first half was when Hornets center Spencer Hawes seemingly beat the shot clock with an off-balance 3-pointer, then shrugged like Michael Jordan in the NBA Finals years ago. But a later review negated the basket, as it left Hawes’ hand after the shot clock expired.

▪ For the second game in a row, Cody Zeller started but played just six first-half minutes due to foul trouble.

Worth mentioning

▪ Seemed like there were a lot of unused tickets for this game. Wednesdays can be a tough night attendance-wise because so many local churches hold functions then.

▪ Steve Clifford likes to keep his rotation down to nine players. Right now that means no Brian Roberts.

▪ The Nets had zero offensive rebounds in the first half.

Report card

A OFFENSE: Seven Hornets reached double-figure scoring, and they topped 10 3-pointers made.

C DEFENSE: The Hornets did very little to contain Brooklyn forwards Young and Joe Johnson.

B COACHING: A bounce-back from a game in New York in which the Hornets severely lacked energy.

This story was originally published November 18, 2015 at 9:33 PM with the headline "Charlotte Hornets clinch win over Brooklyn Nets with late free throws."