It was a less-than-stellar beginning to the Charlotte Hornets road trip, as they dropped Wednesday’s matchup with the Houston Rockets by a score of 128-119.
Charlotte entered the second half trailing by just three points, but Houston’s lead would grow to double-digits as the final two quarters played out. The Hornets managed to pull within five points with just under three minutes remaining in the 4th but were unable to get any closer as the Rockets pulled away from Charlotte in the game’s final minutes.
The truly unfortunate aspect of the loss is that Charlotte wasted their best shooting night from beyond the three-point line. Their 11 made shots on 27 attempts from deep (40.7%) were no match for Houston’s 56.8% conversion rate on 37 attempts (21 makes). This was tied for the most three-pointers in a game for the Hornets this season, with the made three-point percentage being the best by over four percent. The only other game that Charlotte made 11 threes was their season-opening win over the Atlanta Hawks. The following two games, both losses, saw the Hornets make fewer than 10 three-point attempts.
What makes this result incredibly frustrating is that this a game the Hornets need to start winning consistently if they are going to be anything other than an afterthought in the Eastern Conference. Houston is not a good team and should not expect to be anything resembling that description anytime soon. While dropping games to teams of this caliber should be expected in Charlotte’s climb back to relevance, it does not make the loss any better.
The Hornets are now 1-3 on the year with the loss to Houston on Wednesday night. Luckily Charlotte will have two days to prepare for their next matchup in Indiana when they take on the Pacers. This will be the first of two games in as many days, the second of which will be against the Dallas Mavericks.
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