What: Charlotte Hornets (7-19) (2-9 away) at Washington Wizards (3-21) (2-11 home)
When: 7:00pm Eastern
Where: Capital One Arena; Washington DC
How to watch: FanDuel Sports Network, NBA League Pass
Outfitting: Hornets–Statement (purple), Wizards–Association (white)
Game Lines: Hornets -4.5, Hornets money line -170, O/U 227.5
Injuries:
Hornets: Brandon Miller-questionable (ankle), Tre Mann-out (back), Grant Williams-out (knee)
Wizards: Carlton Carrington-questionable (illness), Kyle Kuzma-out (ribs), Saddiq Bey-out (knee)
This game makes me nervous. The Wizards are comically bad, but I have no trust in this Hornets team to make enough shots to beat anybody right now. If we’re using a completely not arbitrary sampling of the last 11 games, these two teams have the same record (1-10). However, the Hornets have been quite a bit better in their 1-10 stretch. They rank 28th in offensive rating, 20th in defensive rating, and 25th in net rating in those 11 games. The Wizards rank 30th (aka last) in offensive rating, 25th in defensive rating, and 30th (last again) in net rating.
Their struggles have been further exacerbated by the absence of Kyle Kuzma, who’s been out for a couple weeks with a rib injury. Jordan Poole and Malcolm Brogdon have been the lead dogs with him out. It’s going about as well as you’d expect for Jordan Poole. Brogdon has been his typical efficient self when he’s played, but he’s been on the mend from a hamstring issue. Justin Champagnie has randomly been good out of nowhere after hardly playing before the month of December.
The Wizards only have three wins, but they’ve come against the Hawks, the Hawks again, and the Nuggets. They can occasionally pop off and win a game they’re not supposed to. They’re technically not supposed to win this one either, but the Hornets have been close enough to their level to make it a possibility.
The Hornets have shown a propensity to encourage certain opponents to take shots. The Wizards have plenty of targets for that, which should make the defending easier than most nights provided someone doesn’t unexpectedly catch fire. In that 11 game sampling we’ve been talking about, only two Wizards have made more than a third of their threes–Malcolm Brogdon (38.9%) and Alex Sarr (35.9%). Only Jordan Poole has maintained a 3-point percentage over 33.3% for the entire season.
In a bit of good news on the injury front for the Hornets, Brandon Miller is already listed as questionable after leaving the game on Monday with a sprained ankle. Even if he doesn’t play tonight, it seems he’s dealing with a minor issue and will be back sooner rather than later.
It’d be real nice to see the Hornets get a win. They need to see a couple go in so they can build some confidence that’s seemingly been lacking in recent weeks. They’ve got a pretty road heavy schedule over the next few weeks, so they need to start picking up wins where they can and do it quickly.
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