Charlotte Hornets: Beat Orlando to setup Showdown in Miami
The Charlotte Hornets beat the Orlando Magic to return to winning basketball just as a key game for playoff positioning pops up.
The Charlotte Hornets have had a good home stand. It has seen only one loss to the Dallas Mavericks. If you wanted to see Kemba Walker scoring points, you have seen it. If you wanted to see Nicolas Batum turn in well-rounded stat sheets, you have seen that too. If you wanted Al Jefferson off the bench then there was that. If you wanted Marvin Williams to step up his game, then you got that as well.
The big sendoff was last night’s 107-99 win over the Orlando Magic. The winning margin was eight, which was fitting because much of that margin was built when the Hornets went on 16-0 run in the second quarter. That margin never really closed. It narrowed to six in the late stages of the game but never got closer.
The key instigators of Orlando’s attack were Victor Oladipo (25 points) and recently acquired point guard Brandon Jennings (16 points). Oladipo was once billed as a do everything guard and these days he is forced to. Oladipo played on the wing for much of this one.
This game was lacking in Aaron Gordon dunks.
The combo that worked for the Hornets included a balanced game from Batum. Batum scored twenty-six and had nine assists to go with seven rebounds.
Rebounding was a team game for the Hornets with five Hornets having seven or more rebounds. Cody Zeller led the way under the glass with thirteen to go with thirteen points, but even Walker had eight boards of his own. Winning the rebound battle will continue to be important down the road so we might as well nab them now.
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Williams hit the other side of the combo. As he keeps sneaking closer and closer to the Hornets record for three pointers in a season, Williams scored twenty-six points of all types. He had nine boards and proved to be difficult for the Orlando bigs to keep track of.
The Dallas loss caused the Hornets to take a step back in the standings. Charlotte (38-29) now sits in sixth place in the East. The good news is that the Hornets are only half a game back from Atlanta in fifth AND Boston in fourth. Add to that that the Miami Heat in third are only a full game ahead.
That last piece of data is the most important. Charlotte visits Miami tonight for a chance to pull even with the Heat and perhaps do better than that depending on what happens to the Hawks and the Celtics.