Miami
Leading into the Charlotte Hornets’ initial game of the Emirates NBA Cup, before the injury report was officially released for Friday night’s matchup with the Miami Heat, Miles Bridges explained what lay ahead.
After all, this was their second outing against the Heat in South Florida in 11 days.
“Defense first,” Bridges said. “A defensive mindset. They scored, what, 130 on us, 120? So, we’ve got to go out there and try to (be better).”
Actually, it was a 144-point outburst by Miami last time, and the task of returning the favor became that much more difficult with the latest news, highlighted by LaMelo Ball missing his third straight game nursing right ankle impingement. Ball was joined on the bench in street clothes by Collin Sexton, who sat out the Hornets’ 126-108 loss to the Heat in East Group C action at Kaseya Center.
Charlotte Hornets star LaMelo Ball (center, white shirt) was in street clothes for Friday night’s game at the Miami Heat. Rod Boone Charlotte Observer
The Hornets’ star guard had arthroscopic surgery on his right ankle and a separate procedure on his right wrist in April. The surgery addressed the impingement, but Ball is still apparently affected enough by it to be sidelined in game action for the better part of the last week.
“Yeah, he’s got that ankle impingement, and it’s been good to see he’s been able to get a little bit of work on the court,” coach Charles Lee said. “And I think every day he feels a little bit better. He’s joined some team activities, which is great. So, the goal is to have him available for as many games as possible this year.
“And so I think that we’re just trying to take a day-by-day, day-to-day approach and a process. He’s got a plan in place, and he’s getting better every day.”
Still, after the team’s highest-paid player ended his 2024-25 season early after only 47 games — which was more than the 22 he logged in 2023-24 — many assumed the nagging issues with Ball’s feet had been corrected. His troublesome ankles are a major reason he’s only suited up in 237 of a possible 409 games in five-plus seasons.
In essence, Ball has been available for only 57.9% of games since his arrival in 2020, and he’s already missed one-third of Charlotte’s matchups this season.
That hasn’t been the case for Sexton.
Listed as questionable Thursday after popping up on the injury report with a neck strain, Sexton was downgraded to doubtful after the morning shootaround at the arena. Roughly 90 minutes before tipoff against Miami, his status got shifted to out, leaving the Hornets really shorthanded in the backcourt.
Sexton and Ball have logged a combined 12 starts, so their presences were missed against the Heat.
“Yeah, Collin hit the ground in that New Orleans game and I think he actually got a tooth chipped and hit his head kind of hard,” Lee said. “So, ended up with a little bit of a neck strain or neck soreness. And so he’s working through that.
“Went through a shootaround today and I think (he is) just not where he needs to be in order to be able to compete at the level he wants to compete at. We all know how hard he plays and how relentless he is in every facet of the game. And, so, unfortunate. But I do think that he’s making progress, and hopefully we’ll see him soon.”
Another NBA Cup dud
Success and the Emirates NBA Cup certainly haven’t gone hand in hand for the Hornets.
In the previous two renditions of the league’s in-season tournament, the Hornets never even came close to advancing out of the opening round. And that trend will continue again this year unless they string together a trio of impressive victories in their remaining group games.
An eternal optimist would say at least the Hornets (3-6) made a game of it after nearly getting run out of the half-empty building in the first quarter. Charlotte yielded 52 points in the opening quarter, falling into a deficit as large as 26, and the Hornets’ offensive firepower couldn’t completely keep up with Miami in the second half.
“Bad defense,” said Kon Knueppel, who had a team-best 30 points to go with eight rebounds and three assists. “We let them, especially on the ball, we let them go where they wanted to and that was with the pass or with the drive. And so when I thought our resistance point was higher on the floor in that second quarter, it was harder for them. But you just can’t come out and play soft like that in the first quarter.”
That’s putting it mildly.
“Credit Miami a little bit,” Lee said. “I think that it was a little bit of a barrage of threes. I think from that point forward, they only hit two threes the rest of the game. And one of them was the (Andrew) Wiggins three at the end of the game. So, I think our group did a really good job with the game plan. And they hit some shots to come out. They were feeling good. And the individual defense I thought was pretty good. And they hit some tough shots.
“And then our transition defense wasn’t great in that first quarter. And maybe some of that transition defense can be equated to our turnovers. I think we had seven or eight turnovers in that first quarter, and they made us pay. And the second quarter you have one turnover and then all of a sudden you’re able to climb your way back into the game. So, a lot of good things that we can kind of take from second, third and fourth quarter, and we got to just be a little bit tighter.”
Charlotte’s composite record following group play determines whether it continues on to the knockout round, and the dropping to 0-1 puts the onus on the Hornets to climb out of the hole if they have any hope of making some noise in the tournament.
Following the completion of group play, six teams with the best records in their respective groups advance to the knockout round. Two wild-card teams — one from each conference featuring the next best record in group play action — also secure spots in the knockout stage.
That single-elimination round, which is considered the quarterfinals, takes place in NBA markets Dec. 9-10. Winners advance to the semifinals at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Dec. 13, seeking to secure a place in the Dec. 16 championship game.
By then, the level of play will be even more intense than it was in Knueppel’s first taste of the league’s in-season tournament. He noticed the difference immediately, even if the Heat were without Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro.
“Yeah, I thought so,” Knueppel said. “When you get punched in the mouth right away in the first quarter, you’re kind of like … it’s a little different. But at the end of the day, it’s still basketball and you got to treat it as such.”
This story was originally published November 7, 2025 at 8:16 PM.
Roderick Boone
The Charlotte Observer
Roderick Boone joined the Observer in September 2021 to cover the Charlotte Hornets and NBA. In his more than two decades of writing about the world of sports, he’s chronicled everything from high school rodeo to a major league baseball no-hitter to the Super Bowl to the Finals. The Long Island native has deep North Carolina roots and enjoys watching “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” endlessly.
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