Charles Lee speaks on the brilliance of his stars, Charlotte's defensive performance, and Moussa Diabate's night

Matt Alquiza | Nov 9, 2024

Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images

The Charlotte Hornets were unstoppable in tonight's second half. Brandon Miller's third-quarter flurry set the stage for LaMelo Ball's inevitable fourth quarter dominance as the Hornets trounced the Pacers down the stretch. Their offensive brilliance was set-up by a gritty, no-quit defensive effort by the entire squad that had Charles Lee beaming post-game. Here's what the Hornets head coach had to say about tonight's 103-83 drubbing.

On allowing a season-low 83 points...

“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 wecontinued 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.”

On LaMelo Ball as a closer...

“It helps a ton when you know that you get to the fourth quarter and crunch time and you have that guy, and then you have a bunch of guys around him that can also hoop. I think that he just works really well with his teammates. I think you saw he was able to play in some two-man games with Brandon (Miller). Again, just credit his ability to play off the ball sometimes, to give it up and go down and play some off-ball action to try to get the defense off of you, and now you might receive it back or you might get involved in an after action. I just think that his overall confidence in himself, his confidence in his teammates just exudes in the fourth quarter, and I think it just becomes contagious for all of us where we know we’ve got that guy and he’s going to help us all be better.”

On Brandon Miller’s 17 points and five 3-pointers in the third quarter...

“He definitely had an offensive burst there. Again, I credit the guys around him for being able to help him get open and get some shots. I thought in the first half, we weren’t really creating any type of screening advantages. We went with some pick-and-roll actions thinking we could kind of play in the seam and hit the bigs and then all of a sudden they can facilitate or score or kick out for some 3s. We didn’t really get it as much as we wanted to. I thought the ball was sticking a little bit, and then in the second half, we went to a little bit more off-ball stuff. Him and ‘Melo worked really well together. ...Brandon benefitted from the help of his teammates, but I think that Brandon wants the ball in these moments when our offense was struggling a little bit and he wanted to help it. I was impressed with how he owned his space today. ...He found a way to get some open shots.”

On Moussa Diabate's big night on the boards

"After the game I made sure to obviously..I talk a lot, so I talked about a lot of things, but one of the things I kind of just finished with was, 'how do you impact winning without scoring?' And he found a way to do that today. I'm super proud of him. Happy with the effort he gave. Like you said, what, 15 rebounds, zero points, and I think three or four huge blocks? Proud of him for not being so bogged down with the box score, and stats, and scoring. He did a lot of the dirty work tonight, and you need guys that are willing to embrace that role and he did a great job of that tonight."

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