What: Charlotte Hornets (10-33) (5-15 home) vs Utah Jazz (23-23) (8-27 away)
When: 7:00pm Eastern
Where: Spectrum Center; Charlotte, NC
How to watch: Bally Sports Southeast, NBA League Pass
Outfitting: Hornets–Icon (teal), Jazz–Statement (black)
Game Lines: Hornets +10.5, O/U 233.5
Injuries:
Hornets: LaMelo Ball-out (ankle), Gordon Hayward-out (calf), Mark Williams-out (back)
Jazz: None
We’ll keep this brief since there’s not much time between when this post goes up and when the game starts. The Charlotte Hornets are coming off consecutive losses that were both embarrassing for different reasons. First, they lost to the Pistons without their best player. Nobody who wants to be taken seriously should lose to the Pistons, especially when they don’t have their best player. Then, they played one half of competitive basketball against the Rockets. The Rockets played two competitive halves and outscored the Hornets 73-36 over the first 18 minutes of the second half. Imagine giving up 73 points in 1.5 quarters. And to do allow it to the 20th ranked offense in the league, no less.
The Jazz aren’t too dissimilar to the Rockets. Both are mediocre teams with a lot of young talent and a sprinkling of veterans to fill in the gaps. Lauri Markkanen is proving that last season wasn’t a fluke by posting almost the exact same stats this season. Jordan Clarkson and Collin Sexton provide scoring punch in the backcourt and are a terrifying matchup for the Hornets scattershot 3-point defense. People kinda forget that John Collins is there, and he’s pretty good too. They share the ball well, which means they’ll probably find it easy to generate good looks against a Hornets defense that generally seems incapable of defending any sort of ball movement.
The Hornets might be without LaMelo Ball tonight, who is dealing with ankle soreness on the second night of a back to back. The Jazz are somewhat soft defensively, so the Hornets can still put some points up even if he doesn’t suit up. Either way, the Hornets need to show some focus and competency on defense to have a shot to win this game.
UPDATE: LaMelo Ball has been downgraded to out and will not play tonight.
