Brandon Miller scored 30 points on just 12 shots as the Charlotte Hornets thoroughly dominated a Philadelphia 76ers team missing Joel Embiid and Paul George.
The Summary
The Hornets had a couple of clunky possessions to start the game, but they quickly found a rhythm and took an early lead. LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller, and Kon Knueppel all made early threes and even Moussa Diabate made an almost-three at the end of a shot clock. Turnovers were the only thing that slowed them down as they went into the second quarter with a six point lead. A whole bunch of stops helped the Hornets to a lead as large as 20 before the 76ers cut into it a little bit, but Charlotte answered the Philadelphia run with one of their own. They scored 16 straight points with the final two coming off Ryan Kalkbrenner blocking an attempted dunk and a run out that ended in a lob from LaMelo to Miller. They led by as many as 31 before the 76ers scored the last six points of the half thanks to a bad inbounds pass by Grant Williams with just four seconds left.
Brandon Miller hit a trio of threes to get the third quarter started and get the Hornets their footing back. Tyrese Maxey started forcing the issue on the 76ers’ end of the floor in a desperate attempt to wake up their offense, but the Hornets had answers every step of the way. They kept pouring it on. Miller put VJ Edgecombe in a blender and hit a floater. On the next trip down the floor, if there was ever a way to have a dagger in the fourth quarter, this was it.
Miller added a few more buckets to finish with a career high 19 points in the quarter. Josh Green added some athletic finishes. Collin Sexton added a free throw in the last second of the quarter to put the Hornets up by an even 50 heading into the fourth quarter.
The only drama in the fourth quarter was whether or not the Hornets could better the result they got against the Jazz a couple of weeks ago. Some really sloppy play quieted those aspirations real fast. The 76ers knocked a bunch of points off the margin, but it was obviously nowhere near enough to threaten the actual outcome.
The Good
Brandon Miller is very, very good at basketball. He was 6-of-9 from three and not all of those were easy. He got going, and you expected everything he put up to go in. He added his usual craft scoring inside the arc and was simply unguardable. He finished with 30 points on 12 shots. Absolutely absurd.
Moussa Diabate celebrated National Moose Day with his trademark energy and activity level. His stats don’t fully reflect his impact, but he gave Andre Drummond all sorts of problems and added some highlights along the way. He showed us he can even make a jumper when needed, albeit without the most aesthetically pleasing form.
Kon Knueppel is starting to put together some triple double like performances. He was extra aggressive attacking the glass and put the ball on the floor more than he had been earlier in the season. He only played 20 minutes but still found time to tally eight rebounds and six assists along with his usual deadeye shooting.
LeMelo Ball didn’t have his best game shooting the ball, but he picked his spots and facilitated the offense. It was another mature game.
Tidjane Salaun didn’t play until garbage time, but he keeps showing some significant signs of growth.
The bad
Turnovers.
What’s Next
We’ll see what happens with the weather, but the Hornets are supposed to fly out to Memphis to play the Grizzlies on Wednesday, but they’re currently dealing with the fallout from the ice storm, and temperatures are projected to barely reach freezing between now and then.
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