What: Charlotte Hornets (43-37) (21-19 home) vs Detroit Pistons (58-22) (26-13 away)
When: 7:00pm Eastern
Where: Spectrum Center; Charlotte, NC
How to watch: FanDuel Sports Network, NBA League Pass
Outfitting: Hornets–City (orange/yellow), Pistons–City (black)
Game Lines: Hornets -3.5, Hornets money line -155, O/U 223.5
Injuries:
Hornets: Coby White-probable (groin), PJ Hall-out (ankle)
Pistons: Kevin Huerter-questionable
It’s the home finale and the penultimate game of the regular season for the Hornets. And no one is going easy on them. After the Celtics played them at full strength, Boston sat Jaylen Brown with a sore achilles against the Knicks. Now the Hornets face the Pistons, who have the one seed locked up but aren’t sitting any player with two games to go until the postseason. They very well could play an expanded rotations and reduce the minutes of their main players, but as of right now, the Hornets will be playing the Pistons at their very best.
There is some history between these two groups. In the last meeting, Moussa Diabate got into a kerfuffle with Jalen Duren, and it escalated into enough of a donnybrook that four players ended up getting suspended. That was a culmination of nearly two games worth of frustration on the part of the Hornets that I think a lot of teams can relate to. The Pistons are physical. They subscribe to the belief that if you are constantly fouling your opponents, the human nature of the officials will cause them to fatigue and let you get away with more than you normally would. They commit fouls at the highest rate in the league, and it’s by a pretty significant margin. They grab and hold away from the ball and initiate all sorts of contact with ball handlers while they try to navigate the floor.
The Hornets can try to use that against them. It’s what caused the Pistons to lose to the Magic two games ago. At this point, the Magic’s only reliable offense is getting to the free throw line, and they did that en masse against Detroit. The Pistons were called for 24 fouls and put the Magic on the line 40 times. The NBA has gotten to a point where defenders are allowed to get away with borderline crimes when guarding dribblers or players off the ball. However, they’ve become resigned to give just about any foul that an offensive player fishes for. If I’m a Hornets player, I’m daring the official to make calls by going into a shooting motion when I feel contact. Do the Devin Booker thing. You’ll probably get a handful of calls and at the very least will get the Pistons to back off a bit.
Cade Cunnigham is back, which adds a whole different dynamic to this team, but it’s hard to say how he’s going to affect this game in particular. He made his return from a collapsed lung last time out against the Bucks, but it was such an easy game that he was never forced to press the issue or play extended minutes. Keeping him subdued will be key in limiting a Pistons offense that is good but heavily reliant on getting shots at the rim to stay afloat.
The Hornets got some help with the 76ers and Hawks both losing in recent nights. The Raptors have beaten the Heat twice in a row, which makes the Heat significantly less of a threat but makes the Raptors harder to catch. The Hornets really need a win here in a tight race for play-in seeding.
