LaMelo Ball's brilliance, Charlotte's interior struggles, and more from the Hornets loss to the Pacers

Frustrated fans of the Charlotte Hornets, take a deep breath.

After a rollicking win over the defending champion Thunder, the Hornets blew back-to-back winnable games against the Raptors on Wednesday night, and the Indiana Pacers on Thursday.

Such is life for a team in their developmental infancy.

My son turns two in less than a week. Every day the kid learns something new: a new word, a new skill, a new way to torment our dogs; he's constantly growing into his toddler self. However, his growth isn't linear. There are always setbacks.

The same is true for these Hornets. Charlotte is one of the youngest teams in the Association, and that has shown itself this week. The overall talent level on this Hornets squad is as rich as it has been in quite a long time, but the talent is young, and they need to push through growing pains against the Pacers and Raptors of the world to consistently put out the type of performance they had in Oklahoma City.

The losses are frustrating, but in my opinion, the Hornets are still right where they should be.

Below are a series of thoughts, stats, and highlights from the the loss bundled into a neat package I like to call the four-point play.

1 Highlight of the Game

LaMelo Ball makes some more magic

These late clock, falling out of bounds jumpers by LaMelo are becoming far too common. The incredulity of his shot making was on full display in this game, with this buzzer beater to end the first quarter taking the cake.

.@MELOD1P for 3 at the buzzer 🚨

VOTE MELO ⭐️ https://t.co/oQJmNeBT3Z | @Lowes pic.twitter.com/BDyJ3AgjA1
— Charlotte Hornets (@hornets) January 9, 2026

2 Game-defining Stats

Indiana outrebounds Charlotte 41-35
Pacers shoot 73.7% at the rim

These numbers coincide with one another.

Thursday night was the second game of a back-to-back for the Hornets, their third game in four nights, and their fifth game in seven days, and Kon Knueppel admitted that Charlotte had some tired legs. The Hornets have been one of the league's premier rebounding teams in 2025-26, but they struggled to keep the Pacers off the boards in the loss.

Moussa Diabate's impact was neutralized by some physical box outs by Tony Bradley and Jay Huff, allowing Pascal Siakam open lanes to slither through space and clear the glass.

Siakam, the Pacers' leading scorer (30 points), took advantage of Charlotte's lack of interior size. When he was able to get past Moussa Diabate guarding him on the perimeter, Siakam faced minimal resistance at the cup. He shot 7/12 in the restricted area on Thursday night.

3 Players of the Game

LaMelo Ball - 33 points, 8 assists, 3 rebounds, 1 steal, 12/24 shooting, 7/15 from three
Miles Bridges - 19 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal, 7/13 shooting
Kon Knueppel - 18 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal, 5/12 shooting

LaMelo was brilliant for 99% of his 27 minutes off the bench. Save for an ill-timed lob to Moussa Diabate with a minute left in the contest, Ball did just about everything right to spearhead the Hornets' comeback attempt.

When Ball sat, the Pacers' lead ballooned. When he got into the game, the Hornets clawed back, spurned by the jolt of electricity that is LaMelo Ball. His shot making was sublime, his passing vision was elite, and his anticipation to haul in three steals was almost enough to make the difference in a close game.

On that note, Charlotte's decision to bring him off the bench paid dividends. Kudos to the Hornets for embracing a league-wide trend that has seen success in both New Orleans and San Antonio. A large team of people comes together to make decisions like that, and the willingness for all parties to embrace a creative way to maximize their oft-injured star player's minutes in crunch time shows important congruency in the Hornets' building.

Miles Bridges was steady for the Hornets on Thursday night. An efficient offensive outing while drawing the difficult assignment of guarding Pascal Siakam for a large chunk of possessions.

4 Takeaways From the Loss

1. Kon Knueppel pushes through the rookie wall

The grind of an NBA schedule looked like it was taking a toll on Knueppel. After strugging against the Raptors, Kon failed to make an impact for the first half of Thursday night's loss to the Pacers.

However, instead of becoming passive or forcing up contested long-range jumpers, Knueppel started driving the basketball with intent, finishing a handful of makes in the restricted area with a couple of drawn fouls to boot.

Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle lauded Knueppel's consistency before the game, and although it was a relatively quiet night for the standout rookie, Kon's ability to impact the game even when the Pacers limited his three point attempts proved Carlisle's point.

2. Liam McNeeley: Winning player

I've been so impressed with Liam McNeeley's two-way impact in these last two games.

He probably won't light up the stat sheet as a rookie, but McNeeley did an admirable job filling in for Brandon Miller for stretches of this back-to-back. Whether it was guarding Indiana's primary offensive options for stretches, finishing plays at the rim, or making the right choices with the ball in hands in transition, McNeeley flashed some of the potential that made him a top-ten high school recruit in the country less than 18 months ago.

3. Hornets continue to struggle with turnovers

Charlotte's turnover rate, the percentage of possessions that end with a turnover, is up to 15.8% on the season, the fourth worst number in the NBA.

The Hornets are able to mitigate some of those struggles by winning extra possessions via offensive rebounds, but their propensity to throw the ball away will make it difficult to win close games on the margins. Charlotte loses the turnover battle almost every time out, and it's arguably the number one reasons for their 13-25 record at this point.

4. Jeff Peterson is smiling somewhere after this week

This has been the perfect week for the lead decision-maker of a team in the late stages of their rebuild, right?

On Monday night, Peterson's Hornets showed the world how high their ceiling with LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller, and Kon Knueppel can be. That trio turned the Oklahoma City Thunder's home gym into a torture chamber for the world champions on their way to a blowout victory.

On Wednesday and Thursday night, Charlotte lost two games in the final seconds, squashing any Play-In talks as the gap between them and the 10th seeded Chicago Bulls extended to 4.5 games.

The Hornets are clearly building something worth tracking, but they are still a few pieces away from becoming the 'premier franchise' that ownership and the front office keeps dreaming about. The best way to add those pieces is through the draft, and Charlotte's ability to stay competitive while still losing games, upping their draft equity in a loaded class, is a win-win for Peterson.