Hornets Render Suspensions Irrelevant in Win Versus Atlanta

Charlotte Hornets head coach Charles Lee knew how important this game was, with an opportunity to flip seeding spots with Atlanta on the line.

Going into this game, Charlotte was tenth in the Eastern Conference, to Atlanta’s ninth– those spots have now flipped following the Hornets' 110-107 win in their last contest before NBA All-Star weekend.

Boy, did the Charlotte offense start this last game before the break off fast, too: five quick Brandon Miller points, two offensive rebounds, and a Knueppel three in the first two minutes forced Hawks’ head coach Quinn Snyder to call a timeout before the first quarter clock had even hit ten minutes to go.

The Hornets' offensive onslaught didn't slow down either, but Atlanta decided to start keeping up. They responded to that early Snyder timeout with a 7-0 run that gave them a brief 9-8 lead, and the two teams traded blows the rest of the first period. It felt awfully similar to how the entire last game felt on Saturday between the two in Atlanta.

Hornets rookie Kon Knueppel not only kept Charlotte afloat in the first, but with four minutes to go, Knueppel made his fourth three-pointer in his fourth try, which saw the rookie break Miller’s Hornets’ rookie record for most three-pointers made in their first year.

Knueppel broke Miller's 82-game record from two years ago in game 55 of 82. He finished the first quarter with 12 points on four of five shooting behind the arc, en route to a 16-6 Hornets run to end the first quarter, which gave them an early eight-point lead.

Charlotte didn’t slow down in the second; they swapped hot hands. This time, it was LaMelo Ball. Ball hit a three in the first but was relatively quiet outside of his offensive orchestration. The Hornets' superstar doubled that tally just a few minutes into the second.

Miller was still the highest scorer through the second, with his ten points helping Ball’s effort push the second-quarter lead to as large as seventeen. Once Ball went out halfway through the second, things changed quickly as the Hornets' ball movement slowed down and the shots stopped coming.

A 12-2 Atlanta run with Ball on the bench gave Atlanta life as they played their best defense of the first half in this stretch. Hawks cut the lead to just as little as four, but a Sion James second game in a row pre-halftime buzzer-beater three saw Charlotte push the lead at intermission to nine, 58-49.

Charlotte killed the advantage created by the late 12-2 Atlanta run within only a few minutes of the second quarter.

Miller and Knueppel helped lead Charlotte on a quick two-minute, ten-zero scoring run before a Miller technical foul for jawing with the referees allowed the Hawks to put an end to their third period scoring drought. It would take another minute and-a-half for Atlanta to make their actual first field goal of the quarter through Atlanta’s Jalen Johnson.

Brandon quickly made up for the technical with a massive slam off a LaMelo BLOB pass that was Charlotte’s first dunk of the game and Miller’s 19th point. Miller was leading all scorers already by this point in the game.

Charlotte’s second dunk of the game by way of Miller again just a few minutes later was an even better dunk and perhaps the best poster of the Hornets season so far on Atlanta’s Onyeka Okongwu. This was Miller’s 21st point and gave Charlotte a sixteen-point lead and gave the crowd in Charlotte its best life of the game to this point.

Can’t believe Brandon Miller isn’t in the dunk contest
pic.twitter.com/05CJjeEtgn
— Hard Rock Bet (@HardRockBet) February 12, 2026

This was the time of the game where Charlotte took Atlanta’s life away.

Something Charlotte has struggled to do in past games this season– the Hawks’ run to end the half, given the Hornets’ suspensions, gave the feeling to all watching that it was going to happen again. It’s a massive sign of growth that a team missing two starters found the will and way to get it back together and extend a broken-down lead back to seventeen in half of a quarter.

The Hornets scored 25 of their 31 points in less than six minutes of third quarter play, taking a 14-point lead into winning time.

Ball started things just the way Charles Lee likes it: with an assist via a lob to Ryan Kalkbrenner for his first dunk of the game.

Atlanta cut the lead from 14 to nine right after with their best consecutive scoring possessions of the second half that led to Lee’s first timeout of the quarter around the ten-minute mark.

Atlanta was back within single digits for the first time since early in the third, and came back out from Lee’s timeout with an ATO that led to two free throws, made by Tidjaune Salaun, pushing the lead back to 11 for Charlotte.

These were the only two points of the third outside of Kalkbrenner’s dunk after four minutes of play into the fourth. The Hawks were on a 10-2 run while Charlotte looked like it was dreaming of the eight days off and struggled to adjust to Atlanta’s switch to a zone defense.

With six minutes and 39 seconds left, the only FG made outside of the aforementioned and other made Hornets’ free throws was a Ball three-pointer.

That same time stamp was the moment Miller made his 53rd free-throw in a row— tying Kemba Walker’s all-time Hornets record of consecutive makes at the stripe.

With the lead still at a manageable 10, and under 5 to play after Atlanta let Charlotte waste 15 extra seconds in the backcourt by allowing Miller to roll the ball without touching it before they pressured.

Miller found Grant Williams in the corner not long after the Atlanta pressure forced him to finally pick the ball up, and Williams buried the shot that gave Charlotte a 13-point lead.

Atlanta matched it the next possession, forcing a Charlotte timeout with the lead back at 10…

A Jalen Johnson response two-pointer made it an eight-point lead, but Ball stretched it right back to 11 at the three-minute mark.

Two possessions later, Atlanta won a challenge on a Grant Williams three-point attempt that was called a shooting foul on the floor by CJ McCollum, which kept Williams from shooting three free throws.

Williams continued his strong fourth quarter of winning plays: after Atlanta won the challenge and the reversed call led to a jump ball at center court, Williams found himself as the one with the ball after the tip-off at center court and straight-lined to the basket– Grant was fouled again immediately at the rim by Atlanta’s Nickeil Alexander-Walker.

This was two seconds of game-time later– Atlanta chose to challenge the shooting foul call on Williams AGAIN…

Atlanta won the challenge again, too, and the call was reversed, giving Atlanta the ball.

This changed everything. Atlanta cut the lead to just one point a few minutes afterwards.

Up one point, Charlotte had a completely broken possession that saw Ball chuck up a heave and allowed Atlanta onto the fast break. With a one vs two for the Hawks on the fastbreak, Brandon Miller forced the single biggest turnover of the game as his defense on Onyeka Okongwu on this fast break forced a bad layup attempt that saw the basketball go off Okongwu’s knee and gave Charlotte the ball back with 27 seconds to go.

Charlotte got the inbound off quickly, and Atlanta was forced to start playing the foul game. By the time Atlanta got Charlotte into the bonus, Kon Knueppel was the man who received the inbound to go to the free-throw line.

Knueppel buried both and sent the Hornets lead to three points.

Atlanta had 17 seconds, a three-point deficit, and the ball– Charlotte played one of its better defensive possessions all season long in an incredibly important moment. Atlanta got two attempts off before the buzzer sounded, the last from Atlanta’s McCollum, fading away in the corner as time expired.

The referees waved it off. Charlotte survives a late scare in their final matchup versus Atlanta, and keeps the BBQ Pig Trophy in Uptown Charlotte until next season……

Or the Play-In Tournament.

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