All Hornets

Takeaways From the Charlotte Hornets Beatdown of the Boston Celtics

Charlotte defeated Boston, winning their franchise-record 10th straight road game.
Matt Alquiza|
Bob DeChiara-Imagn Images

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Charlotte Hornets

Fill in the blank: The Charlotte Hornets are the _____ best team in the Eastern Conference.

After a 118-89 bludgeoning of the Boston Celtics, I'm struggling to fill it in myself. There are legitimate statistical reasons to erase the blank completely, but saying so feels like getting out in front of my skis.

If nothing else, this team has proven that they belong in conversations involving the league's upper crust. Since the calendar flipped to January, the Charlotte Hornets have played up to their competition as well as anyone in the Association, and it feels like we're just barely scratching the surface of the potential that this roster possesses.

1 Highlight of the Game

LaMelo Ball says "night night"

I have officially decided that this is LaMelo Ball's signature shot. A one-legged, falling into the stands, left wing three after a dribble combo that acts like a sedative on his defender.

Not many people in the world even have the green light to attempt this shot. LaMelo Ball seems to do it weekly.

2 Game-Defining Statistics

Three Charlotte turnovers
Boston's 41.7% shooting at the rim

The box score will tell you that the Hornets turned the ball over five times tonight, but if you watched the game, you'd know that two of those came after both teams emptied their benches.

How many times have we lamented the Hornets' struggles with turnovers in this space? Charlotte played their cleanest game of the season tonight in Boston with the deck completely stacked against them.

According to the broadcast, the Hornets didn't arrive in Boston until 4 A.M. after playing one of their sloppiest games of the season the night before in Charlotte. Despite the unfavorable circumstances, the Hornets stared down a sell-out crowd in Bean Town and surgically picked apart a top-ten defense in the sport. Impressive stuff.

Charlotte's defense was just as good as their offense tonight.

Nothing came easy for the Celtics. The Hornets' defense was on a string, and for the majority of the game, every time a player in green touched the paint on a drive there was a swarm of purple clad arms waiting for him.

LaMelo Ball, Kon Knueppel, Brandon Miller, Miles Bridges, and Moussa Diabate, the best five-man unit basketball has to offer, set the tone early, as each of those five stifled a Celtic attack with an impressive individual effort in the first quarter. When the bench mob took over, they continued to carry the torch of the starters in an overall team effort to hold Boston to their worst shooting tally in the paint all season.

3 Players of the Game

Coby White
Brandon Miller
Kon Knueppel
LaMelo Ball (Honorable Mention)

Jeff Peterson inherited Vasilije Micic when he took over as Charlotte's lead decision-maker in 2024, and in less than two years, a flurry of transactions essentially turned Micic into Coby White.

Tonight painted a clear picture of the vision that Peterson had when he acquired White for the low price of Collin Sexton and a pair of second round picks. Coby is a dynamic offensive player who can score from all three levels and run Charlotte's offense at a level that looks like the blurry outlines of a LaMelo Ball led unit. He is so clearly the answer to Charlotte's second-unit struggles.

Miller's second quarter takeover was absolutely brilliant.

Nobody in the world is shooting a better ball than Brandon Miller right now (no, not even his teammates Ball and Knueppel), and the third-year swing man kept it on automatic tonight in Boston. The highlight of his shot making expose was a nasty pull-up three after setting up Baylor Scheierman with a crossover.

Knueppel was as steady as ever tonight. He led Charlotte in scoring with 20 points, knocking down four triples against a Boston defense that somehow left him open despite his sterling credentials.

4 Takeaways from the Victory

1. Rookie Reliance

It is not normal that Charlotte, a good basketball team, continues to rely so heavily on rookies.

With the clock winding down in the third quarter, Kon Knueppel pulled up for a three-pointer in transition and ripped it, leading to a Celtics' possession that saw Sion James and Ryan Kalkbrenner combine to eviscerate MVP candidate Jaylen Brown at the rim.

Rarely in NBA history can you find a playoff contender with even one rookie playing a major role in their rotation. The Hornets have three.

2. Dropping Dimes

There isn't a team in the leauge that allocates less resources to the center position than the Charlotte Hornets. Diabate, Kalkbrenner, and Xavier Tillman are making pennies compared to some of their contemporaries, while totally outplaying them on a nightly basis.

A key development from the two that play big minutes, Kalkbrenner and Diabate, is their growth as passers in the short roll. If opposing teams blitz the ball handler in screening actions that include one of Charlotte's centers, the guards can dump the ball off to Diabate or Kalkbrenner and trust that the right decision will be made with the ball in a four-on-three scenario.

3. Josh Green Keeps on Keeping on

I wrote about this more in-depth earlier in the week, so I'll keep it simple here. Josh Green is a championship-caliber role player who's two-way impact off the bench has been huge in the Hornets' renaissance.

4. Big One on Deck

Earlier this week on X, I gave a nickname to every game Charlotte had on the schedule this week.

In every hero's journey there comes a time in which the underdog squares off against a longtime rival that has bested them time and again. Miami is that for Charlotte.

It is poetic that in order for the Hornets to climb up the Eastern Conference standings and (potentially) evade the Play-In Tournament, they'll have to jump the big bad Heat along the way. Friday's game at the Spectrum Center is their best chance to gain ground on a team that has had their number for the better part of two decades.

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Matt Alquiza
MATT ALQUIZA

Email: Malquiza8(at)gmail.com Twitter: @Malquiza8 UNC Charlotte graduate and Charlotte native obsessed with all things from the Queen City. I have always been a sports fan and I am constantly trying to learn the game so I can share it with you. I survived 7-59. I survived lost the Anthony Davis lottery. I survived Super Bowl 50. And I believe that the best is yet to come in Charlotte sports, let's talk about it together! Enlish degree with a journalism minor from UNC Charlotte. Written for multiple publications covering the Bobcats/Hornets, Panthers, Fantasy Football

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