Charlotte Hornets: Looking at the three-most impressive wins of the season
Our next game in our top-three takes us to Canada where the Charlotte Hornets would make sure they would at least avoid being swept by the Toronto Raptors.
February 28th, in Scotiabank Arena. The Charlotte Hornets are fresh off a home win over the New York Knicks. They’re looking to go into the month of March with a two-game winning streak and a very, very small chance of making the NBA Playoffs.
When I say very small, I mean ‘getting struck by lightning, winning the lottery, and getting eaten by a shark on the very same day’ kind of small. Still, they played their hearts out against the defending NBA Champs and they came out of the snowy confines with a win.
Sure, they no longer had the services of Kawhi Leonard, but the Toronto Raptors were very much in the playoff hunt at that time, with a record of 42-17, good enough for second in the Eastern Conference. So, it’s not like this was barely an upset or anything.
So, how did they do it? Well, it wasn’t pretty, as the Hornets shot just 43% from the floor. Toronto shot even worse, though, making an abysmal 34% of their shots. The real difference here was at the three-point line, where the Hornets—whose perimeter defense was much improved by this point—managed to hold the Raptors to just 23% from behind the arc.
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Again, all five starters scored in double digits, with Terry Rozier and Devonte’ Graham leading the way with 18 apiece. Despite the win, however, none of the starters finished on a positive note in the +/-. The NBA is weird.
That 23% the Hornets held the Raptors to from deep is the lowest they held any team all year, which is amazing given that, at the time of the season’s postponement, the Toronto Raptors shot the sixth-highest percentage in the league from three.
That alone is a testament to how they improved their perimeter defense, and to do it on the road against the World Champs is a feat to celebrate. This just proves, yet again, that there is always a glint of gold in a sea of rubbish.
Next up, we’ll take a look at our final game and it’s against a familiar and very hateable opponent.