What: Charlotte Hornets (7-25) (2-12 away) at Detroit Pistons (15-18) (6-8 home)
When: 7:00pm Eastern
Where: Little Caesars Arena; Detroit, MI
How to watch: FanDuel Sports Network, NBA League Pass
Outfitting: Hornets–Association (white), Pistons–Icon (blue)
Game Lines: Hornets +6.5, Hornets money line +210, O/U 221.5
Injuries:
Hornets: LaMelo Ball-questionable (ankle/wrist), Brandon Miller-questionable (ankle), Cody Martin-questionable (knee), Tre Mann-out (back), Grant Williams-out (knee)
Pistons: Simone Fontecchio-out (personal), Jaden Ivey-out (leg)
The Pistons have actually been a good basketball team on paper for a stretch of games for the first time in several years. They’re 6-3 in their last nine, though they’ve actually been outscored in the totality of those nine games. To make matters worse, their leading scorer in their last two outings, Jaden Ivey, broke his fibula late in the team’s win over the Magic on Wednesday.
Cade Cunningham has been the alpha, as per usual. During the winning stretch, he’s averaged a double double with 24 points and 11 assists per game. Ivey and Malik Beasley have been the Robins to his Batman with 17 points per game apiece.
Without Ivey, some combination of Tim Hardaway Jr. and Tobias Harris will have to help shoulder the scoring burden.
The Hornets have a lot of players returning to a questionable status after missing games due to injury. No official word on the status of Brandon Miller and LaMelo Ball as of this writing, but the fact that the team assigned Isaiah Wong to the G League despite his frequent appearances implies that the team is optimistic that they’ll have a deeper complement of players than they’ve had recently. If the Hornets get all their guys healthy, they might actually have a shot.
