The Charlotte Hornets mustered only 31 points in the first half in a blowout loss to the Miami Heat, 104-87.

Summary

The first half was pretty much unwatchable, especially from a Hornets fan’s perspective. It took almost a whole two minutes for either team to score. The Heat broke the seal and got into a but of an offensive rhythm. The Hornets, however, did not. They didn’t break double figures until PJ Washington hit a three nine minutes into the game. Prior to that, the visitors were 4-of-19 from the field and 0-of-7 from three.

The ball movement got a little bit better in the second quarter, but the overall effectiveness of the offense did not. The ball movement wasn’t purposeful, and most Hornets’ possessions consisted of a lot of dribbling and thought from each player who touched the ball before they moved it. The deficit ballooned to over 20 points as the Hornets struggled to find any sort of groove on either end of the floor. The offensive struggles were exacerbated by the inability of Terry Rozier and LaMelo Ball to make shots. Ball hoisted up a lot threes that didn’t go in while Rozier smoked a handful of layups in the second quarter. At the half, they trailed by 21 after shooting 28.3% from the field and 1-of-19 (5.3%) from three.

The Hornets exploded offensively to start the second half. Rozier made a three then LaMelo followed with a pair of his own. They pulled within 11 at one point early in the third, but Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro restored some comfort to the lead. It hovered around the mid teens for the rest of the quarter as the teams traded buckets with the Hornets relying heavily on self created looks from Terry and LaMelo with a sprinkling of Miles Bridges at the end. That trio scored all 30 of the team’s points in the third quarter as they trimmed the deficit to 15 heading into the fourth.

Ball scored five straight points to start the fourth quarter, but the Heat answered with their own 5-0 run. That proved to be the story of the fourth quarter–every good thing the Hornets did was almost immediately equaled by the Heat on the other end. The dagger came when a Rozier 3-pointer was matched by a Haywood Highsmith 3-pointer on the other end that put the Heat back up 18 with three minutes to play. The Hornets took a timeout, and the benches emptied to close the game.

The Good

LaMelo Ball was very good in the second half. This game was very reminiscent of the stretch of play Ball had when he was coming back early in the season. He shot out of rhythm and was a little passive in the first half, but he found a groove and dominated the second half. In the second half alone, he scored 19 points on 8-of-14 shooting with four rebounds, four assists, and two steals with no turnovers. Hopefully this begets another All Star level run of play like we saw before the injury.

Terry Rozier was also very good in just the second half. He added 19 second half points on just nine shots. It was the kind of performance that the Hornets need from their back court if they’re going to have any success for the rest of the season.

The Hornets were +8 in the 30 minutes LaMelo Ball was on the court.

The Bad

The Hornets were -25 in the 18 minutes LaMelo Ball was on the bench.

The Hornets offense predictably had no idea how to handle the Heat’s disruptive, attentive defense. They spent a lot of the first quarter seemingly hunting mismatches that didn’t exist and forcing up shots without much ball movement. When they did try to move the ball more, it came at the expense of a lot of thought and deliberation. It was very labored. Lots of catching, thinking, dribbling, thinking some more, then passing or shooting. It looked a little bit better in the second half, but that was more a result of the individual brilliance of LaMelo than it was the Hornets improving their offense as a team.

The Hornets continue to struggle badly with their transition defense. They actually did a pretty good job of limiting the Heat in the halfcourt, but a lot of transition possessions looked like this.

The Charlotte Hornets are playing such unbelievably bad defense right now … I’m amused.#HEATCulture pic.twitter.com/BVoZvzbQuM

— Matt Hanifan (@mph_824_) January 15, 2024

The Hornets just don’t look like they know what they’re supposed to be doing a lot of the time.

Nick Richards took all five of his shot attempts in the first quarter as the Heat presumably tried to direct the ball his way. He only made one of those five shot attempts and simply stopped shooting after that. In his defense, his teammates didn’t look his way much after that and they don’t want him being a focal point of the offense, but it’s still not good to have that much of a nonfactor offensively anywhere on the floor, especially when a lot of the backup minutes are going to Nathan Mensah and JT Thor, who are also nonfactors on offense. Thor in particular went 0-of-6 in 10 minutes of playtime.

A good ol’ fashioned 2 trillion from Leaky Black. You hate to see the trillions in losses.

What’s Next

The Hornets get two whole days off before they travel to take on the Pelicans on Wednesday.