Charlotte Hornets aim to win 3 straight as they host Utah

Things are looking up for the Charlotte Hornets after winning their last two in impressive fashion, can they make it three straight wins when they host Utah?

Optimism is buzzing in the Charlotte area as the Charlotte Hornets (11-10) have been playing very well as of late. They’ve won four of their last six and those two losses were by a combined 6 points, so there’s plenty to be excited about.

Fans will be more excited if the team can win their third straight game, which is something the team hasn’t done this season. They’ll have to defeat the struggling Utah Jazz (10-12) in order to do so and I think they can rise to the task. The two teams have split the season series the past four years, so Charlotte should at least be able to take this one.

Charlotte’s last game was a 108-94 win over the Atlanta Hawks. They are currently tied for 6th in the Eastern Conference. Utah’s last outing was a 101-91 victory over the Brooklyn Nets. They are 13th in the West. This is the first of two match-ups against the Jazz this season.

Charlotte Hornets vs Utah Jazz
7:00 p.m. EST, Friday, November 30th, 2018
Spectrum Center
Fox Sports Southeast

Injury Report:

CHA:

Malik Monk – Quadriceps (Probable)

UTA:

None

Things to watch for:

All-Star Kemba Walker has been in a bit of a shooting funk lately, making roughly 30% of his shots over the last three games. You know that bothers him greatly, so hopefully, he can go off on a Jazz team that is 26th in the NBA in opponent field-goal percentage.

As mentioned before, these teams have split their series the last four years. The interesting thing is only one of those games was close, a 123-119 win for the Hornets back in January 2016. Given Charlotte’s struggles to win close games let’s hope that trend continues, with a Hornets victory, of course.

Keys to the game:

Utah isn’t a very good free-throw shooting team. They average 71.2%, good for 4th worst in the league. Charlotte doesn’t give up a lot of fouls, giving up the 7th fewest in the league. If they’re behind late in a close game, this would work in the Hornets’ favor if they need to stop the clock.

Utah also isn’t very good shooting from deep, making just 31.9% from behind the arc, ranking them 3rd lowest in the association. Combined this with Charlotte only allowing teams to shoot 33% from three, the 6th lowest percentage of all teams, and you have the recipe for keeping Utah in check.

Good teams go on winning streaks and the Hornets certainly have the potential to be better. If they can go on a bit of a roll here, it makes the last half of the season more palatable. We’ll see if they can silence the Jazz Friday night in Charlotte.