Sputtering Charlotte Hornets Set to Face Swooning Atlanta Hawks

The struggling Charlotte Hornets are set to take on the Atlanta Hawks as they look to close out their five-game road trip with a win.

The Charlotte Hornets are looking to end their four-game skid with a win in Atlanta against the Hawks. The Hornets won their only previous matchup so far this season, 100-96 in Charlotte.

Charlotte Hornets (14-13) at Atlanta Hawks (12-13)

7:00 PM EST, Saturday, December 17th, 2016

Phillips Arena

TV – Fox Sports Southeast

Radio – WFNZ 610 AM

With Kemba Walker (personal reasons) out last night in Boston, the Hornets predictably dropped their fourth straight, 96-88. Walker returns tonight, hoping to rescue the Hornets from their four-game losing streak against a similarly swooning Hawks team that is just 2-8 in its last 10 games. Instead of taking an in-depth look at the matchups, I’ll focus on what has brought the Hornets down during their losing streak.

Turnovers

So far in 2016-17, the Hornets have turned the ball over just 12 times per game. During their losing streak that has jumped to 15 per game. Those turnovers have lead to about 16 points per game for their opponents. Compare that to just 13.1 opponent points off turnovers before this recent funk. As all things with the Hornets do, this comes down to Kemba Walker and Nic Batum.

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On the whole, Kemba has done a great job protecting the ball this year, turning it over on just 10.1% of the possessions he uses. (For context, Harrison Barnes leads the league amongst high usage players, turning the ball over just 7.2% of the time. Isaiah Thomas is the only point guard with a better mark, at 9.1%.) In the last three games, however, Walker’s turnover rate has spiked to 14.3%. More troublingly, though, Batum has coughed it up nearly 20% of the time, compared to 15% on the season. Charlotte needs its high usage guys to take care of the ball.

Fouls

Before the losing streak, the Hornets committed just 16.6 personal fouls per game, best in the league. Since then, Charlotte has committed 19 fouls per contest. This has resulted in only one more free throw attempt per game (17.4 vs 18.3), but the real problem is who it puts on the court. When Cody Zeller gets into foul trouble, it forces Roy Hibbert, or worse, Frank Kaminsky to play at center.

While Hibbert and Kaminsky haven’t necessarily played more overall minutes lately, they’ve been on the court against better competition. The foul trouble forces Steve Clifford to adjust his rotations and play his hapless backups bigs against premiere front lines that make easy work of them. Similar issues arise with Nic Batum. Despite Batum’s offensive struggles, he is easily the Hornets best backcourt defender.

Variance

Or if you prefer, luck, specifically when it comes to the three-point shooting of the Hornets’ opposition. It’s a common misconception that defenses can control how well opponents shoot from beyond the arc. Sure, teams need to get in a shooter’s face to contest the shot and bother their motion, but that misses the point. When a defense is doing just that, there typically won’t be a shot at all.

That is to say, most players only take threes when they’re open, making it a high-quality look. Over a full season, the variance between the best opponent three point shooting and the worst amounts to just about one point per game when adjusted for pace. To the point: Opponents have shot a ridiculous 41.2% on threes during the Hornets’ losing streak, compared to 33.5% otherwise. That number should (hopefully) come back to earth soon.

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Both the Hawks’ and Hornets’ offenses have sputtered of late. This one may end up resembling the defensive slogs we suffered through in the 90s, at least in terms of a final score. In any event, this is a game the Hornets desperately need for both morale and conference seeding.

Note: All statistics are current through games played on December 16.