The Charlotte Hornets are playing elite basketball. Going 8-2 over their last 10 games, the Swarm have been averaging 119.3 points per game during this stretch run. Now that they have secured a spot in the play-in tournament, I want to know this: Are we going to see the infamous ‘Scary Terry’ return this postseason?
For the uninitiated, Terry Rozier adopted the nickname during his Boston Celtics days. Coming off the bench in his first four seasons with Boston, Rozier would look to provide bursts of scoring as the team’s sixth man.
In 2018, however, this level of scoring rose to new heights in the playoffs. In Boston’s 2017 Eastern Conference Finals run, Rozier averaged 5.6 points per game in 16.4 minutes per game. By the next season’s Eastern Conference Finals run, Rozier, or Scary Terry, bumped his average to 16.5 points per game in 36.6 minutes per game.
Although he was still primarily coming off the bench in 2018, Rozier became known for stepping up in the big moments of the 2018 playoffs. Now that he is with the Hornets, could we be in store for another special Scary Terry run during this postseason?
Through three seasons with the Swarm, Rozier has started every game he has played in. Unfortunately, Charlotte has yet to appear in a playoff series with Rozier on the roster. With their postseason fate already secured, the Hornets are going to need a big performance from Rozier in the play-in tournament if they want to make it to an actual playoff series.
If Scary Terry can appear for a game or two in the play-ins, he will have at least a best-of-seven series to shine next to LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridges. With that three-headed monster of young, proven talent, the Hornets will be a tough out no matter who they face in the first round.