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The Charlotte Hornets kicked off their five-game road trip with a loss to the Golden State Warriors, 114-92. It was a tightly contested game in the first half. The Hornets found themselves down by one point going into the break, but all hell broke loose in the third quarter. Everyone on the Warriors got going on both sides of the ball. While Charlotte made one last push in the fourth quarter, Golden State finished the game on a 16-0 run to make it a laugher.
“We couldn't get a look in the third quarter,” Hornets coach James Borrego said. “They were much more aggressive in the third quarter. We just got to be better.”
The Warriors did a good job playing swarming defense and getting over screens. LaMelo Ball was held to just 14 points on 5-of-14 shooting. Miles Bridges and Gordon Hayward carried the scoring load in this one. Bridges had his fourth 30-point game of the season and Hayward chimed in with 23 points of his own. Outside of those three, though, no one else was in double figures for the Hornets.
“Our strength is our depth,” Borrego said. “We have four or five guys a night that have been producing, but outside of Bridges and Hayward, we couldn't get much production.”
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Hayward mentioned as well that “they didn't give their defense a chance” against the Warriors. They forced the Hornets into some tough spots where they either put up a contested jump shot or committed a turnover that led to an easy bucket at the other end. Bridges also highlighted the lack of ball movement in the third quarter killed them as well.
“The ball definitely got a little bit stagnant. We just gotta go back to moving the ball and trusting the system. Once we go back to that, we'll be good.”
Credit to Golden State, though. The pressure they applied broke this game wide open. Even on a night where the Hornets held Stephen Curry to 15 points, the rest of his team stepped up, with Jordan Poole going for 31 points.
The Hornets now have a day off, but they turn around to play in Sacramento on Friday. Charlotte will need to bounce back to avoid getting into a hole on this important trip on the West Coast.
