Takeaways from the Charlotte Hornets loss to the San Antonio Spurs
The Charlotte Hornets fall to 8-11 on the season as they were defeated by the San Antonio Spurs, 106-86.
Steve Clifford and the Charlotte Hornets lost their third home game of the year falling to 7-3 on the year. Charlotte is also now 4-4 against western conference teams. Despite being without Kawhi Leonard and Tony Parker, the shorthanded Spurs were still too much for the Hornets to handle.
Tough Schedule
The Hornets had a difficult two-day schedule as they went to Cleveland to take on the Cavaliers the night before. It was a tough one-point loss in which the starters played heavy minutes. Following the loss, Charlotte had to fly back and get ready for a 7:00 P.M. tip.
After the game, Steve Clifford said “Last night obviously took a lot out of us. I played those guys huge minutes.” It was also their fourth game in six nights. Every team they played this week was a playoff team. Next week they only play two games and they will have four days until they play again.
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Ugly Basketball
In the first half Charlotte only managed to put up 29 points on 22.2% shooting from the floor. It wasn’t that San Antonio was playing lock-down defense, it was just Charlotte missing a ton of open shots which goes back to the fact that they were spent from the previous night in Cleveland. Fortunately for Charlotte, the Spurs also had an ugly first quarter scoring just 14 points on 6 of 22 shooting.
Charlotte also turned the ball over seven times in that first half that led to 10 points for San Antonio.
Kemba Scare
Kemba Walker went down in the third quarter with an injury to his shoulder after coming in contact with LaMarcus Aldridge on a screen. He stayed down on the floor in pain for a minute or two before being helped back to the locker room. Following Kemba going down it was announced that he would be out for the rest of the night.
All the life seemed to have been sucked out of the Hornets players after Kemba left the game as the Spurs subsequently went on a 7-0 run. But all Charlotte fans breathed a sigh of relief as he returned to the game later looking like himself scoring 11 points on 5 of 5 from the field to finish the game. But by that point, the Spurs had 15 point lead and the Hornets couldn’t get back into the game.
The Hornets will face-off with the Toronto Raptors in their next game on Wednesday, November 29th, at 7:30 ET in Toronto. It will be the team’s first trip north of the border this season. After losing two straight, this could be an important game for Charlotte as they look to bounce back and not let this losing streak carry on for too long.