'They punked us from the get-go'

Putting it all into perspective, Malik Monk didn't sugarcoat anything.

"They punked us from the get-go," Monk said Thursday night. "Every game, they just punked us and had way more energy and were way more physical than us. Shoot, we just can't do nothing with them."

The good news? The Charlotte Hornets don't play Chicago again.

Now the bad: A brutal 120-99 defeat left the Hornets only one game up on Indiana for eighth place in the conference standings. Furthermore, with six games remaining, they are merely 1.5 games better than 10th-place Washington.

A smattering of boos were even audible on more than one occasion at Spectrum Center -- particularly at the tail end of the third quarter -- no doubt the result of they struggles they were witnessing from the home team. The Hornets trailed from wire-to-wire, falling into a hole as large as 24 points against a team that's among the bottom five in the conference.

Sure, the Bulls have had the Hornets' number this season, beating by a combined 30 points in their two previous games against them prior to Thursday. Still, this wasn't what they were expecting to see, even if the Hornets were shorthanded as usual, missing Devonte' Graham on a night new dad PJ Washington returned to the lineup.

They were powerless against Chicago's size and it cost them.  

“I think for us in the second half, it was about rebounding and their second-chance points," Washington said. "We didn’t really fight defensively. We couldn’t really score the ball and they were getting whatever they wanted on that end. For us, we can’t have those types of games moving forward. We got to play better on both ends of the ball. We need every game going forward. It’s crunch time at the end of the season for us. We know that. We can’t have games like this."

They definitely need some solutions. And quick. Or a season with so much promise could end in extremely disappointing fashion.

"We just have to stay together and not hold our heads down," Monk said. "We’ve been in this situation before. There’s a lot of guys on this team that have played a lot of basketball and been on a couple losing streaks and things like that. So, we know what we have to do. We just can’t hang our heads. If we stick together, we’ll be all right."

Quotable: "Just got to keep pushing. No excuses. Nobody’s feeling sorry for us. We just got to keep moving forward. Got a big game tomorrow night and the most important game of the season. We go fight on.” -- James Borrego on his team's current energy level

Noteworthy: The Hornets were unable to crack triple digits in scoring for the 11th time this season. They have yet to win a game when scoring less than 100 points.

Up next: vs. Orlando, 8 p.m. Friday