Game Preview: Charlotte Hornets travel to Memphis to battle the Grizzlies

After a somewhat controversial loss to Oklahoma City at home, the Charlotte Hornets hit the road to face the young Memphis Grizzlies.

Charlotte Hornets (13-21) fans sure weren’t happy with the outcome of their last game and personally, I can’t blame them. The officials seemed very trigger happy and some would say especially biased towards their opponent. That’s been a fairly common sentiment for most of the season.

Time moves on, however, and so must the Hornets as they will play three of their next four on the road. This includes their next match-up, the Memphis Grizzlies (12-20). These two teams have faced each other once this year, with Memphis taking that one in Charlotte by two points back on November 13th.

The refs were a little more reserved in that game, but that didn’t stop the Grizzlies from getting hot from the floor, shooting 54% overall and 49% from deep. Charlotte has improved their overall defense somewhat since then, but that was still one of their worst outputs on defense, especially against bad teams.

As touched on before, Charlotte’s last game was a 104-102 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder. They are 9th in the Eastern Conference. The Grizzlies’ last contest was a 119-110 loss to the Denver Nuggets. They are currently 11th in the Western Conference. This is the final time these teams will meet.

 Charlotte Hornets at Memphis Grizzlies
8:00 p.m. EST, Sunday, December 29th, 2019
FedExForum
Fox Sports Southeast

Stream: Fubo.tv

Injury Report:

CHA:

None

MEM:

None

Things to watch for:

It’s a little odd seeing two fully healthy teams playing each other. The NBA is a tough league and injuries are very commonplace. It’s good for teams and the fans when everyone is available to play, so hopefully, they can both remain injury-free after this one.

Rookie of the Year hopeful, Ja Morant, had a nice game against the Hornets back in Charlotte, scoring 23 points and dishing out 11 dimes. He’ll most likely pose even more of a challenge at home, so look for coach James Borrego to throw different defenders at him, hoping to mitigate his offensive output.

Keys to the game:

Memphis attempts the 4th fewest free-throws in the NBA. That was evidenced in their last game against Charlotte where they shot just 9 free-throws. I’d like to think that the outcome of that one could be duplicated, but if the refs decide to get antsy yet again, then that could be trouble for Charlotte.

Grizzlies opponents shoot the 6th highest percentage from behind the arc, allowing teams to shoot 37% from three. Charlotte shot well from deep against Memphis in the last one, making 44% of their shots. Unfortunately, of course, the Grizzlies shot just a tad better. Here’s hoping they can clamp down better this time.

Charlotte hasn’t lost the season series against Memphis since the 2014-2015 season. In order to avoid that happening again, they need to make the most of their shots while limiting what the Grizzlies can do. We’ll see if they can leave Memphis with a much-needed win Sunday evening.