Nick Smith scored a career high 28 points as part of his first career double double, but the Charlotte Hornets were blown out by the Raptors, 126-96.

The Summary

As basically the only established NBA player available to the Hornets, Jusuf Nurkic got a lot of the early offense run through him. That worked reasonably well while the Raptors couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn. They did get a little bit of a rally late thanks to some very aggressive shooting by their bench and led by two after one.

The officials blew a whistle about halfway through the second quarter and called what was the first foul of the game on the Hornets. Despite defense that was gentle enough to commit no fouls, the Raptors did not find scoring easy to come by. However, in roughly the time it took me to write that sentence, the Raptors splashed three straight triples to break open a double digit lead. They led by eight at the break after a Nick Smith Jr. elbow jumper.

Scottie Barnes came out the break super aggressively with Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett getting shut down. He had a quick little scoring spurt, but the Hornets were able to combine for enough a response to keep the game pretty close for a bit. That was short lived though. The Raptors continued hitting threes and built a lead up to 20 by quarter’s end.

Former Hornet Jared Rhoden exacted some revenge on his former team by leading a Raptors charge from the end of the third quarter through the beginning parts of the fourth. The Hornets deep bench were badly outplayed by the Raptors deep bench, which was a pretty bad look despite it being meaningless. NSJ caught fire in the final few minutes to set himself a new career high in points and his first ever double double.

The Good

Nick Smith Jr. had the best statistical game of his career with the only downside being the sheer meaninglessness of the game it happened in. He quietly picked up his assists throughout the course of the game and then piled on the points with a tremendous display of shooting late. He was a bit more aggressive attacking off the bounce and earned his six free throw attempts, which is an astronomically high single game number for him.

Taj Gibson appeared in the 1000th game of his career and got the game ball and an emotional speech from Charles Lee after the game. You love to see it.

Jusuf Nurkic put up a quintessential April NBA game. As just about the only real viable NBA player on the floor for the Hornets, he got all sorts of touches and had the offense run through him. He was able to turn that into a pretty good stat line against a depleted Raptors team.

Only two games left.

The Bad

Most things.

The Hornets were badly outworked as evidenced by the rebounding and turnover numbers. Because of those two things, they put up 22 fewer shots than their opponent. They were slow to match up in transition, got beat up on the glass, and offered very little defensive resistance to Toronto.

It’s not going to mean anything long term in all likelihood, but it had to sting a little bit to watch Jared Rhoden go off for 23 points after unceremoniously letting him go back in November.

What’s Next

Two games left against just one team. The Hornets finish the season with two games in Boston, the first of which comes on Friday night.