This Hornets victory counts for two, when you consider the messages it sent

Charlotte Hornets coach James Borrego constantly mentions that his team’s margin for error is slim. There is probably no trade this season that would change that.

So they have to change; they have to evolve to a level of precision that teams with more NBA talent might not require. They almost completed that task Wednesday.

Great fourth-quarter defense? Check.

Star sizes up double-team and trusts teammate to make clutch shot? Check.

Reserves have the good sense not to run out on the court before the game is over? Um, not so much.

What could have been a disaster, when referees stopped the game with three-tenths of a second left to award the Detroit Pistons a technical foul, proved instead to be comic relief. Pistons star Blake Griffin’s long in-bounds pass was intercepted by Hornets forward Nic Batum to secure a 108-107 home victory at Spectrum Center.

This was a weird game. The Hornets survived three quarters of dreadful shooting by their top scorers, starting guards Kemba Walker and Jeremy Lamb. Then, Walker took over the fourth quarter with 12 points, three assists and six rebounds.

The last of those assists was Walker giving up the ball to Lamb, who made a 22-foot jump shot just inside the 3-point line for what became the game-winner. Good a shooter as Lamb is, he said he can never remember hitting a game-winner in the last second.

This is the sort of game that can count for more than just a win in the standings. It suggested progress defensively and illustrated Walker can trust his teammates in clutch time.

The defense

Borrego has portrayed the Hornets’ defense as middle-of the-pack, and the numbers back him up. However, that defense has felt fragile over the first third of the season. I’ve thought the gap between their offensive and defensive execution has probably been wider than the numbers imply.

Wednesday’s fourth quarter was the best defense they have played all season. Not just good fortune that the Pistons missed some shots. The Pistons went nearly six minutes without a point to give up a 10-point lead.

That Griffin went scoreless in the fourth quarter, after scoring 26 in the first three quarters, felt stunning. That the Pistons went 0-of-7 from 3-point range, considering all the attention Griffin drew in the lane, was also stunning. Detroit committed five of their 14 turnovers in the fourth quarter and the Hornets might have needed every one of those to pull this one out.

That the Hornets played defense that well with Michael Kidd-Gilchrist absent, due to a personal matter, makes that fourth quarter all the more impressive.

Borrego did some experimenting early this season with just how much he could afford to switch defensively. Of late, he has pulled that back some to those players most adept at the switches (Kidd-Gilchrist and Marvin Williams, in particular). Williams and center Cody Zeller had brutally physical matchups against the Pistons’ Griffin and Andre Drummond inside. They both used up a lot of fouls, but they also had significant impact.

Trust

The Hornets have lost so many close games the past few seasons, and that bled into this one, when they lost five of their first six games decided by four points or less.

Walker had his 20th game this season scoring 20 or more points. But it was that pass to Lamb, open along the 3-point line when the Pistons were so determined not to let Walker beat them, that proved to be the pivotal play.

It was important Walker threw it without hesitation, yet more important that Lamb shot with assertiveness and made it. There was a statement by both that Walker doesn’t have to be all things for the Hornets to win a game like this.

“Everybody was expecting me to take that shot. Even my teammates, probably,” Walker said post-game. “I saw J-Lamb and I tried to make the right play. He made an unbelievable, unbelievable shot.

“It wasn’t the greatest pass, but he made me look good on that.”

Good enough that Walker’s confidence in those around him was rewarded. And the first-season coach made sure to reinforce everything about that experience.

“He made the right play and Lamb delivered,” Borrego concluded. “I give Kemba a lot of credit for trusting his teammates.”

This story was originally published December 12, 2018 at 11:41 PM with the headline "This Hornets victory counts for two, when you consider the messages it sent."