LaMelo Ball scored 28 points thanks to a career high 15 made free throws, but the Charlotte Hornets were otherwise badly outclassed by the San Antonio Spurs.

Summary

The Hornets got off to a very slow offensive start after allowing a 5-point, all free throw possession to the Spurs on their second possession of the game. They made four of their first 20 shot attempts with three turnovers in that span. At one point, they had as many shots blocked as they had made (4). They finished the first quarter with just 22 points, half of which were scored by LaMelo Ball.

Brandon Miller had to leave the game after a super hard fall that came as a result of a foul while Miller was elevating for a dunk. The offense outside of LaMelo continued to struggle badly with the Spurs 25th ranked defense. Doug McDermott made three straight 3-pointers at one point and tacked on a fourth one shortly thereafter as the Spurs buried the Hornet. A Jeremy Sochan turnaround put the Spurs up 21 at the half. The Hornets shot 28% from the field in the first half and were outscored by 18 points in the nine minutes LaMelo Ball sat.

Victor Wembanyama scored 13 straight Spurs points to start the second half and put his team up 31. The Hornets steadied the ship after that, but steadying the ship doesn’t do you any good when the ship is losing by 30 points. The rest of the third quarter and all of the fourth quarter was just garbage time for stat padding.

The Good

LaMelo Ball was good in his first game back from a sprained ankle. It wasn’t his best game by any means, but you expect some rust in a first game back from injury. There probably was less than you’d expect. A lot of his misses were in-and-out or otherwise very close. The Hornets were bad all game long, but they were especially bad and looked completely lost when Ball was on the bench.

Nothing else.

The Bad

Everything. The Hornets got blown out by one of the worst teams in the league. Outside of LaMelo Ball being good at basketball, the Hornets play every game as if they’ve never played together before. They were badly bothered by Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs length inside and started settling for contested jumpers when the interior shots didn’t go in. It’s a broken record, but the Hornets have no offensive system to speak of and have no ideas on how to play off each other. The Spurs have length and effort, and that’s all they needed to sabotage the Hornets offense. They didn’t even need to be a cohesive group.

I don’t think words exist that describe how bad the Hornets were in this game. The Spurs simply tried harder than the Hornets, and that was more than enough for them to dominate the game with how poorly the Hornets are playing right now. The Hornets shot below 30% from inside the arc before they boosted the stats in garbage time.

What’s Next

The Hornets will take a Saturday off before visiting the Miami Heat on Sunday. That’s a terrifying proposition.