Our long national nightmare is officially over; NBA basketball is back! The all-star break felt like it dragged on for ages, but the break has mercilessly come to an end, and the NBA is back with a 12-game slate Thursday night.
That slate includes your very own Charlotte Hornets, who return to action boasting a three-game winning streak and are undefeated since adding Grant Williams, Seth Curry, Tre Mann, Vasilije Micic, and Davis Bertans to the rotation.
Hornets on a hot streak
Ironically, this may have been the only time all season when a nice long break would not have been welcomed. The Hornets had finally put some things together, were playing well, and had built up some momentum, just in time for the all-star break.
Now, eight long days later, the Hornets are back, hopefully refreshed, hopefully healthy, and hopefully with some chemistry and familiarity built up. Let’s just hope they haven’t had too much rest and cooled off too much, as it would be a shame to have squandered their positive momentum.
Keeping the winning ways going won’t be easy, as the team puts their win streak to the test on the road for the first time. The Hornets won those three games before the break in the comforts of Spectrum Center.
The schedule is unforgiving
Thursday, they’ll start a daunting stretch of road games, starting in Utah where they’ll face the Jazz. They’ll have almost no turnaround time as they’ll travel to San Francisco to take on the Warriors Friday night, then it’s the Blazers in Portland Sunday night, and the Bucks in Milwaukee Tuesday night before finally heading back home to Charlotte.
The four-game road trip is just a small preview of what’s to come in the second half of the season as 13 of the team’s next 17 games are on the road, and 16 of their remaining 28 overall. They also have the 5th toughest remaining schedule in the league.
So the schedule will do the Hornets no favors, as they look to keep up their winning ways. We’ll see if they can extend their season-long winning streak to four games on Thursday night, and it’ll be pedal to the metal from there. Buckle up Hornets fans, the stretch run starts now.