Charlotte Hornets: Looking at the three-most impressive wins of the season
Well, here we are with our No. 1 game of the year. It takes place in South Beach against the, at the time, surging Miami Heat.
If you’re a fan of the Charlotte Hornets, you no doubt have at least a little animosity for the Miami Heat. I mean, they’ve knocked Charlotte out of the playoffs the last two times the team made it to the postseason.
Whether in the regular season or the playoffs, the series between the two clubs has been hotly contested over the past half-decade or so. They also came into the league at the same time, with the Heat obviously having a lot more success since then. So, it’s easy to see how it can get chippy.
It looked to be that way again this season as the Charlotte Hornets would play what may just be the final game of their 2020 season against the Heat in Miami. The teams had faced off once already, with the Heat taking that one 117-100 in Miami.
Charlotte had pretty much been eliminated from postseason contention by that point. The Heat, however, had not and were fighting for a top-four spot in the Eastern Conference coming into this one.
Not many Hornets fans saw this one going their way, but that’s why this one is our number one game. Once again, the Hornets’ improved perimeter defense was the deciding factor as they held the league leaders in three-point field goal percentage to just 34% from behind the arc.
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The Heat normally averaged 38%, which doesn’t seem like a large dropoff, but as I mentioned before, Charlotte had troubles defending the deep ball earlier in the season. Not bad for this rag-tag group of guys.
To add on even further, the Hornets shot 50% from three and managed to do some damage at the free-throw line, going 18-22 from the charity stripe compared to just 5-6 for the Heat. Five Hornets players scored in double-digits, including Caleb Martin with 19 off the bench.
Devonte’ Graham led the way with 30 points on 11-19 shooting and 8-11 from deep, proving once again, why he should be considered a candidate for Most Improved Player.
If the season is canceled outright, then this would mean the Hornets would split the season series with the Heat for the second-straight year. You gotta love divisional rivalries. In fact, I’d say that as of late, this might be one of the more underrated rivalries in the NBA.
So, there you have it. These three are what I consider the top-three games of the year for the Charlotte Hornets. Time to wrap it up.