Three newcomers were among five players in double figures as the Charlotte Hornets ground out a win over the Brooklyn Nets, 110-103.
The Summary
It wasn’t a pretty start to the season. Moussa Diabate got the Hornets on the board, but it took two minutes of game action to happen. It took a bit, but eventually the Hornets found some rhythm, and Brandon Miller got rolling. He scored 12 points in the first, most coming during a 14-1 to give the Hornets a modest lead. They held that lead into the second quarter, where Brandon Miller added a few more points to his tally and Noah Clowney forgot how to use his arm. He got into dust ups with Naz Reid, Brandon Miller, and Ryan Kalkbrenner in a span of about five minutes, and two of those involved instances where arms were hooked, and it was totally not his fault. It was a pretty uneventful quarter after that until the very end. The Hornets went on a quick spurt that was answered by Julius Randle. Moussa Diabate got behind the defense for one last dunk to end the half and give the Hornets a 54-48.
The Hornets broke open a double digit lead early in the second half, but it was short lived. Michael Porter Jr. made a couple of impossibly difficult threes to spur a Nets run that gave them the lead. The teams exchanged blows for several minutes, though there was a short stretch where the Hornets got wildly lethargic. Grayson Allen helped get the offense untracked with a couple of threes to get some separation back by the end of the third.
The sloppiness returned at the beginning of the fourth, with two very bad turnovers from Diabate leading directly to easy runouts for the Nets. A timeout settled things down, then Dennis Schröder took over the game for a bit to extend the Hornets lead back into double figures. The Nets threw a few more punches, but they were kept at bay almost single handedly by Diabate’s defense. Grayson Allen splashed the most uncontested dagger of all time to put the Hornets up nine with less than a minute to play.
The Good
All of the newbies showed up and did exactly what they were supposed to do. Grayson Allen ended up leading the team in scoring with 21 points and 5-of-8 shooting from three. He had some timely shots whenever it felt like the game was starting to slip. Naz Reid finished with 20 points, 11 rebounds, and 7 assists. A lot of the offense ran through him, and he generally did well with it. Dennis Schröder was basically the closer, and his repeated straight line drives in the fourth quarter created the buffer the Hornets needed to close the game. Royce O’Neale hit a couple of threes and made some plays on defense. Full marks for all the new guys.
Ryan Kalkbrenner showed an entirely different level of aggression and physicality than he showed last year. He tracked down five rebounds (three offensive) and blocked two shots in just 14 minutes. He tossed away Noah Clowney and got in his face after Clowney caught him in his hooking spree. Both of his buckets were dunks. One was a backdoor lob that he got up for. The other was a dunk right over the defender in a post up situation. There were times last year where Kalkbrenner’s impact was a little overstated by his stats because he didn’t assert himself consistently enough. That was not the case for the first game of this season.
Moussa Diabate, gaffes aside, had an incredible game. He tallied 17 points, 8 rebounds, 5 steals, and 3 assists. He jumped a passing lane for a steal and score. He drew several loose ball fouls that essentially become offensive rebounds. But perhaps most importantly, he absolutely clamped down on Julius Randle late in the fourth quarter when the latter was trying to bring his team back into the game. He stole the ball of Randle twice in the last four-ish minutes of the game and forced him to give up the ball a couple other times.
He ended up going cold in the second half, but the first half showed what Brnadon Miller can be as the lead guy. He scored 17 points in the first two quarters and looked very in control with the ball. Now he just needs to keep it together for the whole game, but that’ll come.
The Bad
Those who think that the Hornets won’t be able to sustain last season’s offensive output without LaMelo Ball got some ammunition from this game. There were moments where points came in flurries, but there were also stretches where the offense struggled to get into sets and generated zero opportunities for good looks over the full 24 second shot clock. There were also a handful of turnovers via throwaways and misunderstandings between players. Things will certainly be better when Coby White and Kon Knueppel get back, and some more time for all the new pieces to build some chemistry will help too. But there might be some cold stretches in there in the early parts of the season.
On that note, the offense with Sion James instead of Kon Knueppel unsurprisingly took a huge hit. James didn’t look comfortable when he got looks and didn’t really do anything to assert himself on the game. He finished with three points on seven shots. He played 27 minutes according to the box score, but it’s hard to remember him doing anything in that time.
What’s Next
The Hornets fly back to Charlotte for a three game home stand entirely against divisional foes. That starts with the home opener against the Hawks on Friday.
