Hornets' defense showed up big-time in Friday night's dominant win over Haliburton, Siakam, Pacers

The Charlotte Hornets defense this season had been up-and-down throughout the nine games contested thus far. However, on Friday night with Indiana in town, the Hornets played some of their best basketball on the defensive end this season holding the Pacers to just 83 points; a season-low for the Pacers on offense and a season-best for the Hornets on defense.

The previous season low for the Pacers this season was 98 points in a loss to the Knicks. The Pacers are known to have one of the best offenses in the NBA, a major factor in making this defensive performance so impressive from the Hornets. To put Indiana's blistering offense in perspective, the Pacers had scored more than 114 points in seven out of their nine games so far before the Hornets clamped them in Charlotte.

Charlotte stifling defense sparked the second-half run

The most impressive factor of Friday night's game was the fact that the Hornets trailed 64-51 with six minutes remaining in the third quarter, which means the Hornets held to just 19 points for the remaining 18 minutes of the game. Sure, you can credit the Hornets offense for getting it together, but if it wasn't for the Hornets stifling defense, then the game would've not only been a lot closer, but the offense would've been harder to come by.

The Hornets finished the remaining six minutes of the quarter on a 23-2 run. The Pacers missed their last eight shots in the third, which was the significant turning point in the game. Charlotte also held Indiana below 30 points in each of the four quarters, a hard to come by statistic for the Hornets as of late.

A special shoutout has to go to the Hornets' two-way big man Moussa Diabate. Diabate recorded 15 rebounds in the game and added three blocks to his stat line. 11 of his 15 rebounds came on the defensive end, preventing the Pacers from getting second-chance points.

Head coach Charles Lee was really proud of the Hornets effort and focus on the defensive end in the Hornets win on Friday.

“The first thing that I was happy with was the fact that we continued to play defense even though our offense wasn’t as good as it probably could’ve been or should’ve been. I thought we got some decent looks offensively. I think in the past, the team has resorted to letting the offense affect our emotional spirit, and I thought that we just continued to play through it and we continued to trust each other and keep getting stops. At the half, I believe they had 42, 44 points, and we were still right there in the game. They come out, they go on a run. Sports are games of runs and momentum, and I thought that we captured a moment where we changed our coverages and the guys executed it to a tee. I thought the effort level, the communication level just went up, and also the physicality. I thought the physicality defensively actually transferred over to our offense, too, and we started screening better and creating more advantages.”
Charles Lee

The Hornets next stop will be on Sunday night versus the dismantled and disgruntled 1-7 Philadelphia 76ers at 7:00 p.m est in Philadelphia.

Charlotte stifling defense sparked the second-half run

MORE STORIES FROM HORNETS ON SI