Charlotte Hornets: The End of the Road this Season

The Charlotte Hornets have a tiny chance at the playoffs now after faltering for two games. So are we saying there’s a chance.

The Charlotte Hornets are officially on the razor’s edge now. They stand three games out of the number eight spot with three games to play. It doesn’t matter who the Hornets have left on their schedule, they must win all three games to have any shot at all. By the way, two seed Boston is the first game in that to-do list on Saturday.

The Hornets are well beyond solving their own problems though. They also need the two teams tied for the seventh and eighth seed spots to lose and ninth seed Miami to lose as well. Not just lose, they two of them to lose basically every game left. The Indiana Pacers, one of those teams, did not cooperate with this last night by beating the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks were one of their better chances for a loss left.

The first team to look at is the Chicago Bulls. Take my advice and don’t. The Bulls have been gifted the easiest closing schedule of the three teams that the Hornets have to jump. They have two games against the Brooklyn Nets and one against the Orlando Magic. The only good news there is that Brooklyn has no motivation to tank those games since they do not control their first round pick next year. It won’t matter, expect no help from Chicago when looking for a team to slip up.

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The team in the other situation is the Miami Heat, currently ninth in the standings. The Heat have the hardest schedule of the remaining teams. Their final four games include matchups with Washington (twice), Toronto, and Cleveland. The Wizards and the Raptors are neck and neck for the third seed, but all that means is the right to avoid the Hawks in favor of the Bucks in the first round. The Bucks and Hawks are close enough to each other that they might flip their positions regardless of what the Wizards and Raptors do.

The third team to look at is Indiana, who did itself a big favor by beating Milwaukee last night. The Pacers are the key team here. The Bulls seem destined to get in. Miami seems destined to be denied. Indiana is in the middle. They need to lose for the Hornets to get in, but their remaining games are Orlando, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. Only Atlanta is a playoff team. The Magic and 76ers are teams jockeying for better lottery position (so with incentives to lose rather than win).

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Finally, we could peak at the Hornets schedule even though the opponents don’t matter at this point. The Hornets would have to win all those games regardless. They get three playoff teams, Boston, Milwaukee, and Atlanta. Each of those teams still has better positioning to play for although there is a small chance the Bucks and Hawks would decide it does not really make much sense to be the fifth seed rather than the sixth seed.

The best case scenario would see the Hornets win out. That would put their record at 39-43. Let’s assume the Bulls win out as well to finish 42-40. Then let’s say that the Heat lose out to finish 38-44, one game behind the theoretical Hornets finish. The Pacers would have to lose all three games to stay at 39 wins and tie the Hornets for eighth. The second tiebreaker would put the Hornets in the playoffs with a better divisional record than that possessed by the Pacers.

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This is not likely, and the Hornets will probably be spending April and May wondering what went wrong and how to improve. Even if they were to win out (with Indiana and Miami losing out), this likely means a trip to Cleveland to face the LeBrons. Perhaps a small chance at the number one pick would be better for them.

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