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Recap/Analysis: PJ Washington almost propels Hornets to historic comeback against Jazz

PJ Washington tied a career high 43 points and Nick Richards scored a career high 26 as the Charlotte Hornets narrowed a 36 point second half deficit into single digits before losing to the Utah Jazz, 134-122.

Summary

The same defensive struggles that were present Friday night were front and center to start this game. The Jazz made 13 of their first 17 shots and seven of their first 10 3-point attempts. There was no resistance at any level of the floor. Meanwhile the Hornets had JT Thor shooting mid range jumpers and stuff. After one, the Hornets trailed 47-24.

Factoring in Friday night’s loss to the Rockets, the Hornets had given up 130 points in three quarters of basketball. Truly an absurd statistic.

The second quarter gave us this dunk of the year candidate. Not just for the Hornets, but for the whole league.

Even though the Hornets got a cool highlight, they continued to hemorrhage points on the defensive end, both in the paint and at the 3-point line. Any help defense led to completely uncontested looks for Utah, and they capitalized. Lauri Markkanen and Collin Sexton both went nuts and were aided by the easy looks they got in the early going. The Hornets trailed 82-47 at the half.

For those keeping score at home–that’s a four quarter stretch in which the Hornets gave up 165 points. Again, truly absurd.

The second half was better though. Dare I say it was good. The teams traded baskets in the first few minutes of the third quarter with the Hornets maintaining their 30+ point deficit. The Hornets, to their credit kept trying though. Miles Bridges hustled back to steal a pass on a Jazz fast break, and that combined with a series of Nick Richards dunks started a Hornets run. The Jazz briefly responded, but the Hornets had their own answer. Richards kept bullying the Jazz inside and PJ Washington got a few nice little floaters in the heart of the Jazz zone. Miles Bridges hit a three at the buzzer to end the third quarter. The Hornets outscored the Jazz 41-23 in the quarter and cut the deficit to 17.

Gold dust PJ was completely unlocked in the third quarter. He teased it with some timely buckets during the third quarter run and carried it into the fourth. The Hornets as a team made their first seven shots of the quarter, with four of those making up 11 points for PJ. The Jazz were almost as good, so the Hornets couldn’t make a dent in the deficit. They shot themselves in the foot with some turnovers and bad defensive rebounding, but they scored enough to keep the game interesting. Richards and Washington played out of their minds. PJ went behind the back for a drive and and-1. Richards grabbed a rebound, dribbled the length of the court, and dropped it off to PJ for a layup. Just stuff we don’t see from them. A pull-up three from PJ made it a single digit game with just under a minute to play. The Jazz got a much needed bucket from Collin Sexton, and that killed any hope for the miracle comeback.

The Good

PJ Washington had that game he seems good for about once a season where he goes completely nuclear. He stacked solid first through third quarters together before blowing up in the fourth. He got hot and hit his spot up attempts from deep and created looks for himself with that little shoulder bump he’s been using more. When the Jazz went zone, he made himself available in the middle of the floor and got a fair amount of push shots from that. He’s now had three career games of either 42 or 43 points and zero other games with more than 32. He has more games with 40+ than he does games with between 30 and 40.

Nick Richards set a new career high in scoring on Wednesday, then a new career high in free throw attempts on Friday. Against the Jazz, he broke that career high in scoring that held for all of three days. He played with physicality and force. He tried to dunk everything and gave the Jazz all they could handle when he was fed the ball below the rim and when he was attacking the offensive glass. He finished with 26 points and had some moments defensively as well with four blocks.

Miles Bridges get credit for his ironman type performances lately. He had 21 points, eight rebounds, and six assists. He played over 40 minutes for the fourth time in the last five games with the blowout loss to the Rockets the only thing that stopped him from making it five straight.

A 75 point second half is pretty good. Hopefully that’s a momentum builder for the Hornets as they wrap up the road trip. Prior to that second half, I was getting worried that the Hornets simply might not be good enough to win a game for the rest of the season.

The Bad

The defense was pretty bad again, I’d say. It was worlds better in the second half just because the Hornets played with more intensity. They can play decent defense. But that first half was such a disorganized mess of players looking around at each other wondering who was supposed to be helping who and all that other stuff we see way too often. If they try harder for all four quarters, we can maybe take a break from talking about the defense here.

Ish Smith dished out 12 assists, but he was the definition of a nonfactor as a scorer. He scored zero points on five shot attempts and his lack of outside shooting becomes more apparent in extended minutes. The Jazz played a lot of zone over the course of the game and having a point guard that doesn’t even need to be guarded outside makes it a lot harder to break that.

What’s NExt

The Hornets will try to build off that momentum of the second half when they host a scorching hot Knicks team. But before we go, let’s enjoy this one more time.

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