Home sweet home. Takeaways from the Hornets’ win over Oklahoma City
The scene unfolding in the final seconds is becoming the norm for the Charlotte Hornets.
With the home team in control and on track to send them home happy, the fans collectively acknowledge the Hornets’ effort in ways that hadn’t been happening previously. It’s pretty hard to miss these days.
“I have felt it,” coach James Borrego said Friday night. “I feel a homecourt advantage here this season. I do. Absolutely. I feel the energy from the crowd. I think the crowd has come out. They are excited by this team. We are energized by our fans. It’s a great marriage as I’ve said before, and I expect that to continue. It’s only going to get better.
“We’ve got to make this a hostile environment, an exciting environment where our guys feel comfortable but edgy here as well.”
They’re making some pretty good progress. By dismantling Oklahoma City 121-98 at Spectrum Center, the Hornets raised their record at home to 13-6 and kept the good vibes going, refusing to suffer a letdown following their two impressive road wins in New York and Boston.
The Hornets are also now six games over .500 for the first time since 2015-16. Coincidentally, excluding their play-in tournament loss to Indiana last season, that’s the last time they truly made it to the playoffs.
Steady improvement is happening for the Hornets (26-20) on both sides of the ball, too. For the fourth time in the past six games, they held the opposition under triple digits. In fact, they have yet to lose in nine games this season when that occurs.
“Yeah, we want our home court to be how the Warriors were, how the Thunder were in their prime.,” Miles Bridges said. “We want our home court to be like that. We want people to be scared when they come in here. So in order for us to do that, we just got to continue to win and continue to dominate teams. We’re going to get to that. We’re definitely going to get to that. We just got to come in focused and ready to play every time.”
Here are some of the main takeaways from the Hornets’ seventh win in their past eight games:
PRODUCTIVE P.J.
P.J. Washington didn’t look like someone who was getting over a right hip contusion.
Listed as questionable leading up to tipoff, Washington had one of his best shooting displays of the season. He drained 6-of-7 shots initially beyond the 3-point arc before slightly cooling off in the second half following a blistering showing during the first 24 minutes and finishing with season-high 20 points. So what was behind Washington’s hot touch?
“I took my hair out and just started shooting better, I guess.,” he said. “It just started falling.”
Those six makes from 3-point range were a season high. When he’s on, he’s knocking them down at his favorite spot from straightaway and giving them a huge boost off the bench.
“It feels good,” Washington said. “Just coming out there being able to make shots. I think it pushes out our leads and then defensively, it’s easy to get stops. I feel like when I’m hitting shots, my game is a lot smoother and it’s a lot more fun to play. For me, it’s just trying to be consistent in doing that every night and I feel I have the ability to. Just trying to do something every night whether that’s rebounding, getting steals, blocking shots, especially being like an anchor defensively coming in.”
SHARING IS CARING
Effective ball movement is an integral part of the Hornets’ game when they are winning, and they had the distribution going against the Thunder. They accumulated 34 assists on their 43 field goals.
Of that total, 22 came in the first half, leaving the Hornets one shy of their highest output in a half this season. They were two assists shy of matching the franchise’s all-time mark for assists in a half.
“That’s what got us going -- everybody touching the ball,” Bridges said. “When everybody touches the ball, everybody does a better job on defense and everybody does a better job on offense. So when everybody is touching the ball, that’s when we are at our best.”
TOUGH SPILL FOR JALEN
Seems like just about every time the Hornets reach full strength it doesn’t last very long.
Yet another name got added to the injury report mid-game, meaning the Hornets had their entire roster together for only a whopping 54 minutes of action following Kelly Oubre’s return from health and safety protocols. Jalen McDaniels left the game in the second quarter with a left ankle sprain and didn’t return.
McDaniels took a nasty spill following a fast-break layup attempt and landed awkwardly, rolling his ankle. He had to be helped off the floor because he couldn’t put too much weight on his left foot, heading directly to the locker room.
“I do think he will miss some time,” Borrego said. “We will have more information after tonight. It is unfortunate for him because he is playing really, really well for us right now.”
So it’s going to be a while before the Hornets are whole again.
“That’s just how it is,” Borrego said. “This is the NBA. It happens. It is life in the NBA. We have enough bodies to get through it, but it’s next man up and we will get some newer bodies ready for Sunday.”
GOING NATIONAL
Apparently the Hornets are slowly graduating from simply being a “League Pass alert” team to one that’s piquing even more interest nationwide. The extra exposure awaits.
The NBA announced the Hornets’ matchup with the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday will now also be broadcast on ESPN, and the game time has changed to 7:30 p.m. to accommodate the switch. It marks the Hornets’ fifth national TV broadcast of the season and second in a little over a week. Their solid win in Boston was also televised on ESPN.
Since the team returned to Charlotte, it hasn’t had more than four national TV games in a single season. But that’s about to change.
“I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves,” Borrego said. “We want to stay in the present. We want to stay in the moment. Friday will come. Now, our guys deserve some credit. They are being recognized and that’s a positive. We’ve got to focus on (the present) and it will make next week even more impactful and bigger and even more exciting.”
