What: Charlotte Hornets (1-0) vs New Orleans Pelicans (0-1)

When: 4:00pm Eastern

Where: Thomas & Mack Center; Las Vegas, NV

How to watch: ESPN

These two teams played total opposite games in their summer league openers. We all watched the Hornets struggle to put the ball in the basket for long stretches of the game before grinding out a win on the back of their defensive intensity and dominant rebounding display. Meanwhile, the Pelicans lost in what was a shootout by summer league standards to the Timberwolves, 105-92. Something’s gotta give I guess.

The Pelicans struggled on the glass in their loss, allowing the Timberwolves to nab 17 offensive rebounds against the Pelicans’ 26 defensive rebounds. They also turned the ball over 16 times. Those seem like areas the Hornets can exploit.

The Pelicans don’t look to have much in the way of exciting NBA talent on their summer league roster. Kobe Bufkin and Markquis Nowell led the charge in their opener, but Bufkin hasn’t looked like much of a player through his first three seasons, and Nowell is always going to be hard pressed to make an NBA roster while standing at 5’7″. That makes it kind of hard to get a gauge on how any of the young guys match up with players they’d be squaring off against when the real NBA games start. I guess we can see how the bigs do against Hunter Dickinson, who’s a very large, very old second year player that was very good in college. Otherwise, I don’t know.

I’d like to see more out of Tidjane Salaun and Christian Anderson in game two. Sion James needs to make a few shots, while Hannes Steinbach, Ryan Kalkbrenner, and the others will do well to build off their performances in the opener. Liam McNeeley will look to continue his ascension towards the greatest summer league player of all time. Hopefully we get some good minutes out of those guys in a game in which they should be a good bit better than their opposition.