What: Charlotte Hornets (0-1) vs Golden State Warriors (0-1)

When: 6:00pm EDT

Where: Golden 1 Center; Sacramento, CA

How to watch: ESPN2

The Hornets complete their warmup for the warmup against the summer league Warriors. Both teams are coming off opening game losses with the Hornets getting blown out while the Warriors lost a hard fought contest against the hosting Sacramento Kings.

In their opening game, the Warriors were led by Santa Cruz standouts Lester Quinones and Gui Santos. The former scored a team high 26 points including five 3-poitners made. Santos chipped in 19 points, 5 rebounds, and 3 assists.

The main attraction for the Warriors is first round pick Brandin Podziemski. The Warriors selected him with the 19th overall pick in the 2023 presumably as a Jordan Poole replacement after sending him away to the Wizards. He was solid in his debut, scoring 12 points to go along with 6 rebounds and 6 assists. He only attempted nine shots in 30 minutes, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get a little more aggressive as a scorer now that he has a game under his belt.

For the Hornets part, they need to be better organized and disciplined on both sides of the ball. They dug themselves a huge early hole against the Spurs with poor rushed shots on offense and disconnected defense. They shook off the jitters in the second half and played even with the Spurs from that point on, but they need to bring that energy from the opening tip.

Brandon Miller will look to build off a big fourth quarter that saw him score 12 points in pretty rapid fashion with the game out of reach. The Hornets should try to get him more looks as a spot up shooter, which may be hard given the score first mentality of the three guards that started the last game and will probably start this one.

I’d like to see Nick Smith Jr. play with more control. We know he can make tough shots. I’d like to see him not take so many. I also want to see Amari Bailey look more comfortable in half court situations after looking out of his depth in the opener.

James Bouknight and Kai Jones need to show more. Bouknight was selective in his aggressiveness in the opening game. I’d like to see him show he doesn’t belong here.