All Buzz, No Sting: Crunch Time Struggles Have Defined The Charlotte Hornets
The Hornets have a better point differential than seven playoff teams. However, they’ll likely miss the postseason because of their ineptitude late in games.
After a surprising 48-win season in 2015–16, the Charlotte Hornets were fashioned in the preseason as a trendy pick to ruffle feathers and contend for home-court advantage in the playoffs. The decision to bring back Nicolas Batum and Marvin Williams ensured four starters would return from one of the NBA’s feel-good stories, and perimeter pest Michael Kidd-Gilchrist was set to return from injury.
After beginning the season 19–15, that vision was wiped away. A quadricep contusion kept plus-minus superstar Cody Zeller out for the better part of two months, resulting in a 7–19 start to 2017.
A desperation trade was made by management in the midst of the slide for Miles Plumlee to fill in some of the gaps Zeller vacated. Plumlee has played 82 minutes for the teal-and-purple and will be paid $12.5 million per year through 2020.
In March, the Hornets have evened out with a mostly healthy roster, going 9–7. The win-loss column in the last eleven games has resembled a checkerboard: lose three, win three, lose, win, lose, win, win.
Aside from Zeller’s injury, the defensive struggles and lack of three-point shooting have headlined the set of problems the Hornets have, which leaves them on the verge of reserving their trip to the NBA Draft Lottery on May 16.
Charlotte’s defensive rating has ballooned to 105.6, good for 12th in the association, but nearly four points higher than any previous mark during the Steve Clifford era.
That’s ticked upward steadily as Marvin Williams and Frank Kaminsky have played more together in the midst of the frontcourt’s persisting injury problems. The Williams-Kaminsky pairing has a 111.2 defensive rating, a figure that would tie the Los Angeles Lakers for last in the association.
After averaging over a block a game last season, Williams simply hasn’t had the same presence around the rim. Despite Kaminsky’s improved shooting and confidence, he still remains a liability defensively, especially at the center position.
The bench as a whole has been a problem throughout the season. Marco Belinelli’s scissor-legged jumpers have clanked more often than in recent years, and Brian Roberts’ poor impersonation of Lou Williams is a headache.
After finishing eighth in three-point percentage last season, Charlotte has plummeted to 18th this year. Some of that can be attributed to swapping Kidd-Gilchrist for Courtney Lee in the starting lineup, but Belinelli’s sharpshooter reputation has reaped a league-average 36 percent from deep this year.
Were it not for Kemba Walker, the Hornets would be among the very worst teams from behind the arc this season in a system that thirsts for space.
Walker and Zeller are two of the few bright spots this season, each improving upon career years last year. Walker received his first All-Star nod amid a crowded Eastern Conference backcourt.
He won’t get any MVP consideration because of a particularly bloated year in candidates. But, in terms of dictating how a team performs and creating opportunities for others, he’s among the very best. He currently ranks eighth in point guard real plus-minus, ahead of names like Isaiah Thomas and Kyrie Irving.
Kemba has a PhD in under the rim finishes and has used his improved jump shot over the last two years to create avenues to where he really wants to get to: dribbling downhill against a backpedaling big.
Walker generates more pick-and-roll possessions than any player in the league and is remarkably consistent out of them, settling in at the 83rd percentile in points per possession spawned out of the two-man game.
Once he creates the switch, the big is at the mercy of one of the best crossover artists in the game. He reaches into his ever-expanding bag of tricks for a special move or two each night.
Yet, for all of Walker’s wizardry, the Hornets’ biggest issues can be found late in games. In those moments, their troubles are exacerbated in what should be winning time.
The Charlotte Hornets have played in 49 games with “clutch” situations, defined as the score being within five points of either team with under five minutes left in the game. That number is only bested by the Washington Wizards, who have 50 total games in those situations.
In those games, the Hornets are 22–27, good for 22nd in the league in winning percentage. Each game is different and represents a different set of advantages, issues, etc. But, Charlotte’s struggles in the clutch can be boiled down to one thing: not being able to stop the other team when it matters most.
The Hornets rank 29th in the league in clutch defensive rating at 122.4, trailing only the tanktastic Lakers. Last season, Charlotte finished fourth in that category.
A staple of Clifford’s coaching tenure in Charlotte has been the consistent effort and attention to detail defensively, despite a mediocre talent core. This year, that effort and concentration has waned.
After a particularly painful loss to the Chicago Bulls on March 14, Clifford had this to say to David Scott of the Charlotte Observer:
“It’s mistake after mistake. We play with no discipline defensively. We don’t. It’s been the story too many times this year. This is on me now. I have to do a better job of getting them to understand what we have to do.”
The Hornets have prioritized fit and continuity over raw talent, and it works well when all the strings are tightened. When they aren’t, it can get ugly, leaving very little room for error.
The fact that Charlotte’s problems are multiplied in the game’s biggest moments make sense. When both teams put their best five players on the court, play through their best players and run their best sets, it is clear the Hornets are clearly short of playoff vitality.
Take for example: the March 11 matchup against the New Orleans Pelicans. Anthony “Ice” Davis took a blowtorch to the entire Charlotte uptown area and the Hornets’ playoff hopes on his 24th birthday.
Davis did all of his work late with teammate DeMarcus “Fire” Cousins on the bench, including scoring nine of the Pellies’ 13 points in overtime.
Okay, Davis likely has a few MVP awards ahead of him. Sometimes, those guys just have those nights.
But, this wasn’t the first time Buzz City ended up on the wrong end of a YouTube montage; in fact, it’s far from being the only time. When Kentavious Caldwell-Pope gets paid this offseason, he may want to send a small stipend to the Hornets every month, because KCP went OFF on Charlotte in late February.
In crunch time, Caldwell-Pope guarded Kemba on one end and ran Nic Batum off of countless screens on the other, delivering soul-crushing treys to the Hornets faithful.
The point being, when it gets to winning time and each team knows where the ball is going, most nights — the Hornets haven’t been able to stop whoever’s on the other side and haven’t had options past Kemba Walker.
That’s concerning going forward, considering the limited flexibility Charlotte has heading into the summer. The Hornets are likely set to receive a mid-first round pick.
If the Hornets closed out more of these games, they would likely end up with a similar outcome of last season. However, the opposite paints the picture that sits in front of us.
With the franchise’s best player since Glen Rice signed through 2019 in Walker, the Hornets can’t blow it up.
And that’s been made clear from the top, as Coach Clifford stated the expectations to Scott of resting healthy players late in the season and taking on a tanking mindset.
“It’s easy for me, because I’m working for an owner who just doesn’t believe in it. And I have an associate head coach who would kill me if I started doing it.”
So for now, the Hornets must focus on improving what they have. Player development and drafting will surely be prioritized ahead of free agency this offseason.
Heading into next season, the mantra must be “finish.” In my interview with Cody Zeller earlier this season, he talked about Coach Clifford stressing the little things — that being something they got away from.
It’s a part of the game Zeller excels in, but the Hornets lacked in his absence and have struggled to retrieve in his return. With a team that relies on executing those little things so heavily, that execution (or lack thereof) has been magnified in the most important moments this year.
Completing those actions and finishing plays are things the coaching staff can prioritize over the summer to sharpen.
The margin for error isn’t getting any larger with this roster, and though that doesn’t mean success is unreachable, it makes those “controllables” all the more important.
All stats courtesy of Basketball Reference, NBA Stats and ESPN.
