Hornets’ inability to learn their lesson may deal death blow to their season
A timeout had been called following yet another wide-open jumper unleashed by Detroit’s Kelly Olynyk, and the Charlotte Hornets were entangled in a serious tussle with the Pistons.
Montrezl Harrell stood over the team’s huddle late in the fourth quarter and emphatically gestured as he made his point, no doubt disappointed with the Hornets’ lack of defensive intensity. This was the exact team Charlotte had reeled off 15 straight victories against and pounded a little over two weeks ago in Harrell’s first game with the Hornets.
Harrell, who was partially brought in to add some veteran leadership, ripped into his teammates. He saw how Detroit kept hanging around and the Hornets couldn’t deliver the decisive blow while allowing Olynyk to sink a season-high five 3-pointers while getting too comfortable.
But his impassioned speech couldn’t snap them out of their game-long trance. Too many defensive miscues paired with an inability to make plays in the clutch cost the Hornets in a brutal 127-126 overtime loss at Spectrum Center on Sunday night.
“It definitely hurt,” Miles Bridges said. “We needed this game. This is one we just gave away.”
In a season filled with its share of expectations, these are the kinds of games that could ultimately do the Hornets in with their attempt to, at worst, be in the play-in tournament for a second straight year. The Hornets (30-32) have a thin margin of error and it’s getting even smaller thanks to dropping 10 of their last 12 games — three coming after they couldn’t get it done in regulation.
They’re 0-6 in overtime, another indicator they aren’t good enough to turn the intensity up whenever they want. They’ve tried that trick on several occasions this season and have constantly gotten burned, the latest happening thanks to Olynyk’s buzzer-beating fall-away jumper Sunday.
Giving Olynyk his props is the easy thing to do and follows the unwritten rules of professional etiquette. But the reality is the Hornets never should have put themselves in that position to begin with.
Not taking the Pistons seriously enough hurt them and they needed a put-back by PJ Washington off Bridges’ missed drive with 4.1 seconds left in regulation to send the game to overtime despite leading by 6 points late in the fourth quarter. These missed opportunities have the potential to be catastrophic once the standings crunch hits its apex in April.
“It hurt,” Terry Rozier said. “I ain’t going to lie. It hurt. But part of this league is we play a lot of games and we’ve got another one tomorrow in less than 24 and we’ve got to move on. But this one hurt and not just because of their record or because they are Detroit, but every game matters for us. So, it hurts.”
Add this to the pile of defeats that make it obvious the Hornets glance at the opponent’s record, then decide to adjust their energy level accordingly.
“Yeah, we learned this against the Magic, Rockets and now this one,” Bridges said. “So, we’ve just got to fix it. Just got to fix it. Can’t play down to our competition.”
Unfathomably missing easy shots that could’ve sealed the outcome. Yielding too many (22) offensive rebounds. Clanking costly free throws — Detroit intentionally fouled Mason Plumlee once in the fourth quarter to put him on the free-throw line — and defensive lapses victimized the Hornets. They’re things that have cropped up with greater frequency in their last three losses, each one unable to be settled in regulation.
“We’ve just got to make a shot, make a play down the stretch,” coach James Borrego said. “We had free throws in all of them, we’ve had layups in all of them, we’ve had opportunities to rebound the ball in all of them. And we’ve just got to close out. We’ve got to make one of those plays
“It’s not anything tricky here. One rebound, one stop, one free throw, one shot and we continue to put ourselves in position to win games. We just have to find a way to close out and make one more play.”
That’s something they can’t be repeating much over the coming weeks and expect to be in the postseason. Otherwise, instead of packing a bag for a playoff road game, they’ll be filling up boxes with their locker belongings wondering where things went so wrong.
With 20 games remaining, the Hornets have to somehow gain at least 4.5 games in the standings in order to climb out of play-in tournament position and guarantee themselves a first-round seven-game series. Conversely, they are just two losses shy of falling completely out of the playoff picture altogether, which is why the defeat to Detroit stings.
“It definitely hurts,” Bridges said. “We needed this game. This is one we just gave away.”
This story was originally published February 28, 2022 at 8:21 AM with the headline "Hornets’ inability to learn their lesson may deal death blow to their season."
