Hornets Drop A Slugfest To Physical Detroit Squad

The Charlotte Hornets absorbed some early blows from a scrappy bunch of Detroit Pistons on Friday night and never really matched their aggressive energy in a 111-99 home loss at Spectrum Center.   

LaMelo Ball and Terry Rozier each had 20-point performances in the loss, while Gordon Hayward (19) and Brandon Miller (17) both nearly did so, as well. Ball and Hayward both grabbed a team-high nine rebounds and the former also tied a career high with 10 made free throws and dished out nine assists to narrowly miss his 10^th NBA triple-double.

Detroit led by seven at the break, thanks largely to a bullying 29-12 first half run that bridged the opening two quarters. Charlotte continued to hang around though, coming within striking distance multiple times in the second half without ever getting back in front. With 5:09 to go in the fourth, Miller’s break-away dunk trimmed Detroit’s lead down to four, but the visitors immediately retaliated with a game-sealing 9-0 stretch over the next three minutes.

Of the game’s first 18 available rebounds, the Pistons wrangled 15 of them and eventually won the battle on the boards, 52-41. The visitors also committed 24 turnovers and a whopping 29 personal fouls, matching the second-highest single-game total by a Charlotte opponent last season, which they coincidently accounted for on Dec. 14, 2022.

“The two biggest things we need to fix are the turnovers and the rebounding,” said Hornets Head Coach Steve Clifford afterwards. “We got a bunch of good shots in the first quarter, didn’t (make them). Readiness entails a lot of things. It’s not, ‘You’re not trying.’ We had intensity early. You’ve got to be locked in on the right things. It had to be rebounding, which is all we talked about this morning, and the same in pregame.”

“They’re a physical team,” Hayward said. “You’ve got to give them credit for that. They played hard. I felt like we competed and played hard as well. The turnovers were another issue for us tonight. Halfcourt defense we were pretty solid, but it was too many rebounds for them.”

The Hornets shot only 37.5%, 46.7% on rim attempts (21-of-45), 25% from 3-point range (7-of-28) and then 76.5% at the charity stripe (26-of-34). Like their adversary, they also struggled with ball security, coughing it up 18 times for 25 points the other way. Foul trouble played a large role in big men Mark Williams, Nick Richards, and PJ Washington – ejected with 22 seconds left in the game following a Flagrant-2 penalty – combining for only eight total rebounds.

Even without last season’s leading-scorer Bojan Bogdanović, Detroit’s offense connected on 46% from the field and outscored the hosts’ bench by a 58-25 margin. Reserve guard Alec Burks, who had a near-season-high 27 points in Charlotte last December, poured in a game-high 24 points this time around. Second-year center Jalen Duren had 14 points on 7-of-8 shooting and snagged a game-high 17 rebounds, seven of which came in the opening frame.

Added Clifford, “The MVP of the game was Duren. He set the tone for the whole game all by himself. If that’s your matchup and that’s his biggest strength (rebounding), you’ve got to keep him off the glass. It’s pretty simple. That’s the way this league works. It’d be like giving a great shooter a wide-open shot. That’s it.”

The Hornets will close out their season-opening three-game homestand against the Brooklyn Nets on Monday, Oct. 30 beginning at 7 PM ET at Spectrum Center. Follow all the action on Bally Sports Southeast and WFNZ 92.7 FM.