Hornets' LaMelo Ball, Gordon Hayward reveal what doomed them vs. Wizards

LaMelo Ball and Gordon Hayward admit a lot went wrong for the Hornets in their brutal 132-116 loss to the Wizards.

The Charlotte Hornets suffered their second straight loss to the Washington Wizards 132-116. A lot just went wrong fast for a team that was trying to get back into the win column. They were up by five entering the second quarter, but that's when the Wizards started to thrive. Washington put up 41 points to Charlotte's 17 in that quarter and the rest of the game was downhill from there. While LaMelo Ball, Gordon Hayward and the team came within 10 at one point, they never really made it a game.

Gordon Hayward reflects on the lost

After the game, Hayward admitted that they really struggled stopping Danilo Gallinari, who made four of his seven 3-pointers in the game.

“I think they found something with (Danilo) Gallinari at the 5,” Hayward said about what went wrong in the second quarter. “He hit some timely 3s and then it kind of got rolling. We made a little bit of a run there in the third and got it to seven or eight. It felt like they just pushed it back up to 20 really quick. Too many straight-line drives to the rim, which caused too much scrambling and cover, and now they’re shooting open 3s. We've got to figure out a way to play them a little bit better in the next couple days.”

Gallinari had 18 points in 19 minutes off the bench and stretched the floor to the point where Charlotte's traditional bigs were pretty much unplayable. On top of that Charlotte failed to adjust accordingly and the game unraveled quickly. The starters were pulled from the game in the fourth quarter with still three minutes left to play.

Preparation is key

The Hornets just didn't seem ready, or prepared rather according to LaMelo Ball.

“Preparation. I feel like we didn’t come out ready,” Ball said. “I felt we should’ve won and we just didn’t come out ready.”

Ball also eluded to watching the film as a way to figure how to better play against this team their next time out, which is in less than 48 hours. Both teams will be set to play their In-Season Tournament game on November 10th in Washington. Hopefully the Hornets come out more prepared that time around to kick off the NBA's newest attraction 1-0.