Charlotte Hornets: Despite Bridges 4th Quarter Heroics, Hornets Fall to 0-2

While trying to avoid a second straight loss, the Charlotte Hornets could not complete the comeback, as they fell to the Thunder.

The Charlotte Hornets were looking to bounce back from their season-opening loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers, playing against the Oklahoma City Thunder. This was the Thunders’ season-opening game. Unfortunately for the Hornets, they could not complete the Miles Bridges’ led comeback.

The Hornets looked like a team on a mission in the first half of the game. The team was on fire offensively, and it looked like LaMelo, scoring 13 points in the first half, was going to be the team leader in points at the end of the game. Gordon Hayward looked like his vintage self, and PJ Washington was living up to expectations, but in mirror-like fashion to the game against the Cavs, the Hornets faltered down the stretch.

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The third quarter was where things started to trend down for the Hornets, getting outscored 23-16 in the quarter. While these numbers aren’t terrible, the flow of the game started trending towards the Thunder. The Hornets’ offense started to hit a cold spell, and it wouldn’t come out of that spell until a little over a minute and a half left in the game.

With a little over a minute and a half left in the game, Miles Bridges caught fire. He would start his run by putting an easy layup in with 1:06 left on the clock to cut the lead to 9 points. With under thirty seconds left in the game, Bridges would go on to hit 3 clutch threes in a row to bring the Hornets all the way back and tie the game 107-107.

Unfortunately, this would not last long, as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander would hit a clutch mid-range jumper to go up 109-107 with 1.4 seconds left. The Hornets inbounded the ball to Rozier to take their final shot but it was a long-range, contested shot and Rozier pushed it a little too hard.

Miles Bridges would finish the game with 14 points. He would go 62.5% from the field and an impressive 100% from the three-point line, going 4 out of 4.

Terry Rozier once again led the team in points, albeit it wasn’t as impressive as his last game but still, he scored19 points in 31 minutes of play. He was 33.3% from the field, hitting 5 of 15 and a measly 28.6% from three, making only 2 out of 7.

PJ Washington was second in scoring, totaling 18 points in 29 minutes of play. He hit 46.7% of his field goals (7/15) and went 33.3% (1/3) from the three and he went 3 for 6 on free throws.

LaMelo Ball scored 13 points in only 15 minutes of play, going 50% from the field, the three, and from the charity stripe.

There are a few key takeaways from this game that are promising for the Charlotte Hornets. First things first, the Hornets can be a lethal team if they learn how to play an entire game of basketball and not just one really good half and one not-so-good half. If the first half of this game tells us anything, it says that the Charlotte Hornets have a lot of raw talent and once they learn how to use that consistently, they can be a top 10 team in this league.

Another takeaway from this game is that the chemistry just isn’t quite there yet. Without a doubt, there are some moments when the chemistry is in sync and the team is firing on all cylinders. The problems come when the chemistry starts to lack, and sometimes this happens during the middle of the game. This of course causes cold spells and scoring droughts.

If the Charlotte Hornets can figure out how to consistently play with chemistry, and if they can play an entire game the way they are capable of playing, the rest of the league better watch out. This is a dangerously talented team.

I love this team because of their grit and guts. They have the intangibles, now it’s just a matter of putting it all together for 48 minutes. We’ll see just how much heart they have when they host Kevin Durant and the Nets tomorrow night.

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