Terry Rozier and Miles Bridges led six Charlotte Hornets in double figures, but they couldn’t overcome strong play from the Minnesota Timberwolves bigs as they lost, 123-117.

Summary

The Hornets started the game slowly, as they are wont to do. They dug themselves a double digit hole before they even put their first points on the board. They hemorrhaged points to the Timberwolves big men. They kept pace after that slow start thanks to Timberwolves turnovers and some decent Hornets shooting. It also helped that Karl-Anthony Towns left the game early in the second quarter with foul trouble and didn’t return until the second half.

Miles Bridges was aggressive attacking the basket and creating offense for the Hornets. Gordon Hayward had a nice stretch in the middle of the second quarter with his patented unorthodox midrange game. At the break, the Hornets trailed 62-59.

The return of Towns in the second half gave the Hornets fits. He and Rudy Gobert built another double digit lead for the Wolves, just like they did to start the game. The Hornets, just like in the first half, refocused and worked their way back to eventually take a one point lead. But again, like in the first half, that lead lasted for only one possession before the Wolves took it back. The teams traded the lead back and forth a couple of times before the Wolves took it into the fourth quarter.

The Hornets spent a lot of the fourth quarter desperately clinging to the narrowest of leads. They struggled to get stops, particularly against the Wolves’ bigs inside. They ended up losing the lead for good after the Wolves followed a timeout with a lightning fast 6-0 run. The task became even more difficult when Mark Williams fouled out for making contact with a defender on a dribble handoff. Without a rim protector inside, Karl-Anthony Towns drove inside for a layup to force a Hornets timeout. The Hornets couldn’t mount a late comeback, and Mike Conly sealed the game with an and-1 on a drive inside.

The Good

The Hornets got solid contributions all down the rotation. No one player stood out for the entire game, but different guys made their presence felt at different times. All five starters scored in double figures and PJ Washington chipped in 18 off the bench.

PJ Washington was good PJ. He was aggressive on both sides of the ball and on the glass despite spending a chunk of his time as an undersized center against one of the bigger front courts in the league. He had seven rebounds (three offensive) and five assists to go with his scoring. He also had a nice semi-chasedown block.

The Hornets kind of went toe to toe with arguably the hottest team in the NBA. The Timberwolves have now won 14 of their last 16 games. I guess it’s kind of a moral victory to almost beat them. Then again, both teams were out some key players.

The Bad

The Hornets got bludgeoned by the Wolves’ bigs. Karl-Anthony Towns, Rudy Gobert, and Naz Reid combined for 77 of the team’s 123 points. Gobert was frequently left unattended when Mark Williams and company had to step over to help. Reid and Towns are tough covers and were always going to get most of the spoils given the absence of Anthony Edwards, but you’d like to see the Hornets put up more resistance against those guys. That triumvirate combined to shoot 63.3% from the field and only needed 49 shots for their 73 points. The Hornets only played 38 minutes with a true center on the floor, which contributed a smidge to all of that.

The defense in general is a really, really big problem, and it’s not getting better. The Hornets ended this game with a defensive rating of 129.5, which is quite a bit worse than their season long defensive rating of 121.4, which is the worst in the league. They gave up 58 points in the paint, which is again over their season average that already was one of the worst marks in the league. The Hornets shouldn’t be this bad defensively, but here we are.

What’s Next

The Hornets have several days off before playing the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday. The Bulls had been imploding but are coming off back to back home wins over the Bucks and Pelicans. They’ll also be on three days rest because of the In-Season Tournament quarterfinals on Monday and Tuesday.