What: Charlotte Hornets (1-1) vs Boston Celtics (1-0)

When: 5:00pm Eastern

Where: Pavilion; Las Vegas, NV

How to watch: ESPN2

Dreams of back to back summer league championships are in flux after the Hornets lost a heartbreaker to the Pelicans on Saturday. They’ll need to win each of their last two games while controlling most of the quarters to make the top four, which advance to the semifinals. They’ll get their first test at that against Charles Lee’s old squad, the Boston Celtics.

The Celtics have only played one game so far, and they won it against the Toronto Raptors. Hugo Gonzalez struggled with his shot but otherwise controlled the game for Boston. They also feature Chris Cenac, who I know was popular among some people as a target for the Hornets in the 2026 NBA Draft. He had 14 points and four blocks in his debut.

The Hornets will need to bounce back from kind of a throwback summer league game. It reminded me of the games I watched for the last several years prior to that last one where the Hornets couldn’t make shots and played the ugliest basketball games of all time in the summer. They’ll need to take better care of the ball so their defense and rebounding can take center stage.

We’re at a point in the summer where players might start getting shut down, but that’s not a thing the Hornets seem super interested in doing. They let all their guys play it out last summer, and they might do the same again this summer as they continue to try to build a winning culture. The only exception we might see is Ryan Kalkbrenner, who is currently the team’s only backup center and is currently blocking some minutes from rookie first round pick Hannes Steinbach. Tidjane Salaun might get the hook as well given his most veteran status, but he doesn’t seem as important a piece to handle with kid gloves at this point.