Brandon Miller scored a career high 35 points but it was far from enough as the Charlotte Hornets lost to the Indiana Pacers, 115-99.

Summary

The game tipped off and the Hornets trailed 9-0 before many people even found their seats. They tightened up the defense after a couple of minutes, but they couldn’t do anything offensively. They struggled to find the paint against the league’s worst paint defense and didn’t get any of their jumpers to fall. They made 5-of-25 shot attempts and none of their nine 3-pointers. They trailed the Pacers 26-13 heading into the second quarter.

The Hornets finally got their first three of the game from PJ Washington midway through the second quarter. They picked up their energy level and started playing faster. It mostly paid off. They got out on the break and found Nick Richards with a couple of lobs. They continued to force the Pacers into tough shots and played mostly good basketball. They won the second quarter and went into halftime down by just 11.

Brandon Miller scored 10 points in the first 90 seconds of the second half to cut sharply into the Pacers lead. The Hornets fell apart when he cooled off. They let the Pacers score on 12 straight possessions and trailed by 24 by the time they got a stop. They followed that first stop with several more stops. The Pacers didn’t score for the final 3:44 of the third. The Hornets scored nine points during that span to go into the fourth quarter down by only 15.

Miller got fouled shooting a deep three early in the fourth and made all three free throws to reach the 30 point threshold for the first time in his career. He was about the only one to do anything good in the fourth. The offense bogged down to a bunch of stagnant dribbling until Miller got back into the game. He hit another three and scored on a soaring layup over an attempt to draw a charge. It was far from enough, and the Pacers were able to take a timeout to empty the benches with a little under two minutes to play.

The Good

Brandon Miller continues to look like a superstar in the making. The Pacers resorted to double teaming the Hornets rookie in the third quarter, and he handled it well. He was aggressive looking for his shot. He was pulling up deep behind the 3-point line and playing assertively. His career high scoring night was well deserved even if the box score efficiency doesn’t look great.

PJ Washington had 22 points off the bench. He didn’t do anything spectacular, but he played consistently from start to finish and was the only Hornet that really took advantage of the Pacers soft interior defense.

The Bad

Miles Bridges is off. He took a lot of shots, and a lot of them weren’t good shots. He settled for a handful of weird jumpers, and when he did attack the basket, he smoked a bunch of layups. He was the worst offender when the Hornets offense fell apart in the fourth quarter with the most egregious example when he took received a pass with six or seven seconds on the shot clock and dribbled the clock out before getting a shot up.

Ish Smith should not be starting games at point guard. He scored three points and tallied four assists in 24 minutes of court time. He’s largely invisible when he’s on the floor, and his inability to shoot is a massive hindrance to the team’s spacing. He doesn’t even look at the rim when he catches the ball outside the 3-point line. Other teams know that and are typically waiting several feet inside the 3-point line to cut off his drives and help their teammates.

What’s Next

The Hornets are right back at it tomorrow night against the Los Angeles Lakers.