Charlotte Hornets look to rebound against Oklahoma City Thunder

After a close loss in Cleveland, the Charlotte Hornets are heading back home for a shot at their first victory of the season.

The Charlotte Hornets’ recent game came at a loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on opening night. While the team could not come out with a win, the Hornets will be looking to win their first game of the new season on the road against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

More from Hornets News

• Hornets: Where does Brandon Miller’s ceiling rank among other rookies?
• Charlotte Hornets grade out mostly average in position-by-position ranking
• Hornets News: P.J. Washington makes bold statement on Brandon Miller
• Grade the mock trade: Hornets snag Tyler Herro, flip Gordon Hayward
• 3 Areas that the Charlotte Hornets should see improvement in for 2023-24

The Hornets had a great outing from Terry Rozier in their last game, and the team will be looking for his success to carry over into this game. Luckily for the Hornets, the Thunder have not played a game yet this season.

The Thunder were supposed to play on Wednesday against the Houston Rockets, but the game had to be postponed because of James Harden’s recent endeavors. With that said, the Thunder are likely going to be rusty.

This Thunder team looks a little different since they traded Steven Adams and Chris Paul during the offseason. However, the Thunder did manage to pick up Al Horford, Trevor Ariza, Justin Jackson, and others.

Charlotte Hornets vs Oklahoma City Thunder
7:00 p.m. EST, Saturday, December 26th, 2020
Spectrum Center
Fox Sports Southeast

Stream: Fubo.tv

Injury Report:

CHA:

Cody Zeller – Hand (Out)

Grant Riller – Knee (Questionable)

OKC:

Theo Maledon – Personal (Out)

Trevor Ariza – Personal (Questionable)

Ty Jerome – Ankle (Questionable)

Things to watch for:

A key thing fans will want to watch for is how Terry Rozier will perform in his second game of the season. Rozier scored 42 points last game and shot well from three. It will be interesting to see if he can replicate what he did on opening night.

The Hornets will be without longtime starter Cody Zeller on Saturday since he fractured his hand on Wednesday. With Zeller out, the Hornets will likely be turning to Bismack Biyombo, or the team could go small by starting PJ Washington at center.

The Thunder are also missing two key pieces from last season. Fans will need to watch and see if OKC is ready for this game. The Thunder lost two of their preseason games against the Bulls while only winning one against the Spurs.

Keys to the game:

A key that everyone already knows about is defense. The Hornets gave up 62 points in the paint in their last game while also finishing with 32 rebounds. If the Hornets want to win this one, they will need to limit easy shots and grab rebounds.

Furthermore, the Hornets will need to shoot better from three. Charlotte went 16/44 from behind the arc in their last game, so the team needs to take better shots from deep.

Finally, the Hornets need to stop Shai Gildeous-Alexander from scoring. He finished as one of the Thunder’s top scorers last season, and the Hornets do not need to have him having a breakout game on the road.