The Charlotte Hornets had a couple of chances to hit a game tying three in the final seconds, but they couldn’t convert and lost to the Denver Nuggets, 107-104.

The Summary

Not going to lie, I got massively sidetracked watching this game back because the Luka Doncic/Anthony Davis trade news broke about halfway through me watching the first quarter.

Anyway…

The Hornets got the full Nikola Jokic experience early on. He made a couple of snazzy passes that led to easy looks, including what was essentially a full court tip pass to Michael Porter Jr. The Hornets gave up a pretty hefty amount of points early, but they did steady the ship defensively as the quarter went on. The offense wasn’t quite as successful, and they trailed by seven after one quarter.

The Hornets watched Nuggets run away for the first few minutes of the second, and it looked very possible that the game would get out of hand. However, the Nuggets went cold, Nick Smith got hot, and the Hornets made it a ballgame again. What was at one point a 17 point deficit had been whittled to eight by halftime.

The Nuggets again pulled away through the first several minutes of the third quarter. To add injury to insult, Vasa Micic stepped on the floor wrong and twisted his ankle (one of us!). The quarter featured a short corner 3-point attempt from Moussa Diabate, which was short but fun. In classic Moussa fashion, he grabbed the offensive rebound and put it back in anyway. The Hornets trailed by a little over ten points for the most of the period, but a Diabate layup at the horn pulled them within nine heading into the fourth.

The Hornets tightened the clamps on the defensive end of the floor. That combined with the absence of Jokic while he rested on the bench made it very difficult for the Nuggets to score, which allowed the Hornets to pull themselves within striking distance. Back to back finishes by Mark Williams capped off a 17-4 Hornets run and tied the game at 94. Miles Bridges repeatedly bullied his way to the basket and buried Jamal Murray under the rim a couple times. The game was tied at a couple different points before the Hornets took the lead with just over a minute left on one of those instances of Bridges pushing Murray around. Bridges hit a fadeaway over Murray on the next possession to put the Hornets up 104-100, but unfortunately those would be the last points the Hornets would score.

Mark Williams forced a Jokic miss on the ensuing Nuggets possession, but the ball bounced right back to Jokic, who tossed it back in while getting bumped by Mark. KJ Simpson missed a potential dagger, then Josh Green got caught with his hand in the cookie jar trying to steal the ball from Jokic in the back court. Jokic made both free throws to restore the lead. Bridges couldn’t convert on the other end while possibly getting fouled, and Murray leaked out for an easy layup to put the Nuggets up three. The Hornets last gasp featured a couple of desperation throws (not shots) at the basket, but none of them were particularly close to going in.

The Good

Nick Smith has been featured in The Bad section a couple times lately with how poorly he’s shot the ball. He seemed to snap out of his slump last night. He matched his season highs in both points (19) and 3-pointers made (5). It was nice to see him bounce back with so much authority after how bad his slump got.

Miles Bridges had another strong game and almost elevated the Hornets to a win late. He’s been tough to stop when he focuses on being aggressive attacking the basket. Poor Jamal Murray was helpless to stop him in the fourth quarter.

Mark Williams finished with 20 points and 15 rebounds playing against arguably the best player in the world. Yeah Jokic had an absurd triple double on the other end, but he does that to everybody. Mark played a really solid game.

I said in the preview that the Hornets would be pretty badly outclassed in this game, but despite all the absences, that wasn’t the case. The Nuggets had all their stars, and Miles Bridges, Mark Williams, and Nick Smith Jr. gave them all they could handle. It’s another entry on an ever growing list of games in which the Hornets look like a decent NBA team despite missing so many of their good players. Charles Lee has the boys playing good ball.

The Bad

Another game, another injury. Sometimes it seems like a health hazard to play for the Hornets. Hopefully Micic’s ankle sprain isn’t too bad.

I had to rewatch the game on the FanDuel Sports App because I wasn’t able to watch it live. The re-air stream abruptly ended before Jokic’s free throws with 18 seconds left. That’s high quality media right there.

What’s Next

Three games left on the homestand. The next one comes on Monday night against the Washington Wizards. Over the last ten games, the best team in the NBA has been whoever is playing the Wizards. That means nothing since the Hornets keep losing to the Wizards anyway, but it’s still funny.