Preview: Charlotte Hornets seek second straight win over the Indiana Pacers

The Charlotte Hornets have won three straight games, tying their longest of the season. They’ll have a chance to best that on the road against the Indiana Pacers.

It wasn’t pretty, but the Charlotte Hornets (12-16) got the job done against the Chicago Bulls in the Windy City. Both teams shot horribly from the floor, but Charlotte’s ability to get to the free-throw line was what helped propel them to the win.

So, from Chicago, they head to Indiana to face the Pacers (17-9). They’ve seen them once already this season, beating them in Charlotte back on November 5th. That was an overtime win seeing the Hornets win by a mere 2 points.

It’ll be a tough one as the Pacers are one of the better teams in the East, despite not having the services of All-Star Victor Oladipo for quite some time. He’s mending well and should be back soon, but he won’t play in this one.

As mentioned before, Charlotte’s last game was an 83-73 win over the Chicago Bulls. They are 9th in the Eastern Conference. Indiana’s last contest was a 110-100 victory over the Atlanta Hawks. They are currently at the 6th spot in the East. This is the second of four meetings this season.

Charlotte Hornets at Indiana Pacers
5:00 p.m. EST, Sunday, December 15th, 2019
Bankers Life Fieldhouse
Fox Sports Southeast

Stream: Fubo.tv

Injury Report:

CHA:

Nicolas Batum – Hand (Questionable)

Marvin Williams – Knee (Out)

P.J. Washington – Finger (Out)

IND:

Victor Oladipo – Knee (Out)

JaKarr Sampson – Back (Questionable)

Brian Bowen – Hand (Questionable)

Things to watch for:

In a bit of odd news, the Hornets found out Saturday that rookie P.J. actually fractured a finger on his right hand. It’s odd because he showed no signs of it during Friday’s game, and no news came after until about midway through Saturday afternoon. Hopefully, he can come back soon because the power forward position is really thin right now.

Keys to the game:

These two teams both rank in the top ten in the NBA in three-point field goal percentage. The Pacers shot well from deep in the last matchup, but the Hornets only shot 32% from behind the arc. The Hornets managed to win simply by getting to the line. They shot an astonishing 42 free-throws in that game.  That’s not likely to happen again, so Charlotte needs to make sure to take quality shots from three.

If Charlotte can’t hit their shots, then they’ll need to do work under the basket as Indiana’s opponents snag the 6th fewest boards a game in the league. Charlotte is not a great rebounding team, so that’s another reason they need to make their shots.

The Hornets can inch ever closer to .500 with a win in Indiana. It won’t be easy, but if they play as well as they have the past few games, then they can head back home with a four-game win streak. Here’s hoping they can get it done Sunday evening.