Demoralizing loss in Detroit proves that the Charlotte Hornets aren't ready for a playoff push

Although we're still a few days away from Christmas hams being sliced and egg nog being poured during a traditional holiday feast, the Charlotte Hornets were served a fresh slice of pie in Saturday night's loss to the Detroit Pistons.

Humble pie.

LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller, and Kon Knueppel were fresh off of blitzing the Atlanta Hawks in a resounding win on Thursday, but they were unable to capitalize on the momentum that could have come out of that win. Detroit held Charlotte at a stiff arm for 48 minutes and made it abundantly clear that these Hornets aren't quite ready for primetime.

Charlotte continues to struggle against physical teams

Playoff basketball is a different beast than the regular season brand of the game.

Intensity ratchets up across the board and every possession becomes a pressure cooker that is defined by hard-nosed physicality on both ends of the floor. The game turns into a knock-down drag-out fist fight, the polar opposite of the up-and-down free-flowing style that defines the 82 games leading up to the annual tournament.

A few teams in the league, Detroit being one of them, play each regular season game like it's the playoffs. The Pistons deep stable of long-armed wings muck up half court possessions and force opposing offenses to work every second of the 24 allowed in the shot clock to get a good shot.

When Charlotte plays against a team like that, they have no answer.

The Hornets sported a 66.0 offensive rating in the half court in tonight's loss against Detroit - a 0th percentile number according to Cleaning the Glass, meaning that was among the worst half court offense games the league has since since the site started collecting data.

A few of Charlotte's other games with well below-average half court offensive efficiency came against Miami, Oklahoma City, Toronto, Cleveland, New York, and Toronto: six teams with legitimate playoff aspirations.

Being able to score against a set defense is a hallmark of playoff teams across the NBA, and Charlotte has proven time and again that they can't do it well enough against good competition to be taken seriously as a playoff-ready unit, no matter what blowout wins against teams like Atlanta, Utah, and Chicago tell you.

If you look at the top five teams in both half court offensive efficiency (Nuggets, Lakers, Thunder, Bucks, Celtics) and half court defensive efficiency (Thunder, Heat, Pistons, Rockets, Warriors), you see a mix of teams with their sights on the Larry O'Brien trophy, teams with generational superstars, or teams with a long-standing, well-established identity that can thrive no matter the personnel.

Charlotte doesn't have any of those things quite yet.

Don't let people like Bill Simmons fool you - the Hornets aren't ready to swing for a big upgrade at the trade deadline. Their asset pool is overflowing, and they have plenty of time to continue evaluating their base of young talent before making a move for a franchise-changing star player.

The game against Detroit proved, once again, the the Hornets are what they are: a talented, young, frisky squad that can upset anyone on any given night, but still lacks the requisite consistency and ceiling to end their decade-long playoff drought.

And that's okay! This season has always been about evaluating the core of Ball, Knueppel, and Miller, and if their growth led to a berth in the Play-In Tournament, then so be it. However, the playoffs were never once the goal, and even though Charlotte has played above their station a few times in the early goings of 2025-26, they still aren't.

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