A depleted Charlotte Hornets team traveled to Milwaukee and was completely and thoroughly dominated by the Bucks. 120-84.
Summary
The Hornets suited up just ten players for the game given all the trades and waived players on Thursday. They took a quick lead in the first couple of possessions, but the Bucks quickly answered with 13 straight points to establish a nice early lead. A pattern quickly emerged where the sport of basketball looked significantly easier when the Bucks had the ball than when the Hornets had the ball. The Hornets offensive possessions featured a lot of stationary dribbling and a lot of…somethings…that vaguely resembled shot attempts over and around Giannis Antetokounmpo and Brook Lopez. Meanwhile the Bucks quickly attacked and moved the ball and bombarded the Hornets with threes. At the half, the Hornets had made 8-of-26 shots inside the arc and shot 31.7% from the field on the whole. The Bucks made 12 3-pointers and cruised to a 66-38 halftime lead.
The third quarter was more of the same. Cody Martin and Miles Bridges dominated the possession time when the Hornets had the ball and very few of those possessions bore any fruit. The game was a total bore to watch. Neither team tried very hard and the Bucks out-talented their way to an even bigger lead. The Hornets turned the ball over on a back court inbound to complete somebody’s bad basketball bingo card and went into the fourth quarter down by 36.
The fourth quarter was all garbage time. Nothing much happened and nothing worth covering happened.
The Good
The game is over.
Nick Richards had some decent moments offensively and had a double double.
The Bad
I Tweeted (X posted?) this during the game, but there are a lot of times when the Hornets play like a team that hasn’t practiced together at all. Tonight was one of those nights, and it lasted all game long. There was no semblance of any offensive system and no one seemed to know how to play off each other. Most offensive possessions consisted of one of Cody Martin, Miles Bridges, or Brandon Miller dribbling at the top of the key for over half the shot clock with no one else moving. The defense looked like it’s usual disorganized mess where everyone collapsed at the first sign of the ball moving towards the basket and then scrambled to try to recover to the perimeter if the ball got kicked out.
The Bucks turned the intensity all the way down to idle for the second half and the Hornets still couldn’t find any answers on either end of the floor. There’s definitely a talent gap with the likes of Damian Lillard and Giannis on the other side, but NBA basketball shouldn’t look as bad as the Hornets make it look. Missed shots and missed assignments are going to happen when the players aren’t as good. They just don’t look like they know what they’re supposed to be doing, and that’s inexcusable when most of them are over halfway through their second season playing under the same coaching staff.
The turnover at the end of the third quarter.
Miles Bridges was 0-of-10 on shot attempts inside the 3-point line.
JT Thor let Thanasis Antetokounmpo score on him out of an isolation possession from the 3-point line.
What’s Next
The Hornets come back to Charlotte for a three game road trip before breaking for the all star break. That starts with the Grizzlies on Saturday, and they should have all five of their new players available to play.
