After an embarrassing loss on the road, the Charlotte Hornets head back home to take on the Utah Jazz.
The Charlotte Hornets (13-18) have a bad habit of losing to seemingly inferior teams. That was the case Wednesday night in Cleveland as the Hornets narrowly lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers. A Cavaliers team that had just six wins coming into that matchup.
That will happen when you let a team like that shoot 54% from the field while you yourself shoot just 41%. Making just 61% of your free throws will stymie your offense as well and had just two more of those gone in, we may be singing a different tune.
Alas, nothing can be done about that now, and they need to get ready for their next game and boy, is it a doozy. Their next opponent is the Utah Jazz (17-11). The Jazz have been a bit of a problem for the Hornets over the years, winning or at least splitting the season series ever since the turn of the century. Granted, they play each other only twice a year, so the sample size is rather small, but Utah has been a handful nonetheless.
As stated before, Charlotte’s last game was a 100-98 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers. They are currently 9th in the Eastern Conference. Utah’s last contest was a 111-106 victory over the Atlanta Hawks. They are 6th in the West. This is the first of two meetings between the Hornets and Jazz this season.
Charlotte Hornets vs Utah Jazz
5:00 p.m. EST, Saturday, December 21st, 2019
Spectrum Center
Fox Sports Southeast
Stream: Fubo.tv
Injury Report:
CHA:
P.J. Washington – Finger (Out)
UTA:
Mike Conley – Hamstring (Out)
Things to watch for:
One of the few times the Hornets get consecutive days off this year, and they’ll need all the rest they can get because, after this one, they’ll immediately head off to Boston to battle their former captain and the Celtics.
Hopefully, Devonte’ Graham can get out of his recent shooting funk because the Hornets are a very different team when he’s not hitting shots. This is partly due to teams making him their primary focus when the ball is in his hands, but the coaching staff should be able to find a way to make him effective again.
Keys to the game:
Utah is 1st in the league in three-point field goal percentage. The caveat here is that they only rank 21st in the NBA in three-point attempts. Charlotte started the year giving up a lot from behind the line, but over the past few weeks, they’ve stepped up their perimeter defense. They’ll need that to continue in this game.
Speaking of defense, Utah’s is pretty good. They give up the fewest assists in the league. This means they can disrupt the flow of a team’s offense, causing opposing teams to have to take bad shots. Charlotte cannot afford to fall prey to that as their offense can go stagnant for long periods of time.
Charlotte must put the bad taste of their last loss behind them before another back-to-back. This one will be tough, though, but if they can put together a solid four quarters, they can pull off the upset. We’ll see if they can leave the Queen City on a victorious note Saturday evening.