Hornets Bounced from Playoffs in Blowout Loss to Hawks

The Hornets have been eliminated from the NBA playoffs.

ATLANTA, GA - For the second straight year, the Charlotte Hornets were smacked out of the play-in round of the NBA Playoffs. Wednesday night, the Hornets fell to the Atlanta Hawks 132-103, bringing their season to an end.

A train stopped in front of the Hornets team bus on the way to the arena pushing their arrival time 15 minutes behind schedule. Fifteen minutes doesn’t sound like much but it’s an eternity when you are used to having a routine. 

Early on, it showed as the Hornets were as flat as could be on both ends of the floor. At one point, LaMelo Ball, Terry Rozier, and Miles Bridges were a combined 1/17 from the floor. P.J. Washington picked up the slack offensively, leading the Hornets with 13 points in the first half. 

After hitting four of the first seven shots, the Hornets missed 11 of its final 14 shots of the opening quarter and also threw it away five times to make matters worse. 

The real problem was on the defensive end. Transition defense was an absolute mess for the Hornets and it led to several easy buckets either near the rim or from three. There was a ton of confusion and pure display of a lack of communication. Atlanta had a number of open shots from the perimeter and Charlotte was fortunate to only be down eight at the half, 60-52.

Charlotte’s poor first half carried over into the third quarter as DeAndre Hunter (16 points) and the Hawks really poured it on, pushing the lead way out to 26. As a team, Atlanta hit 15 of its first 20 shots in the quarter, most of which were wide-open, uncontested looks. 

The Hornets buried themselves too big of a hole to climb out of and didn’t do much in the fourth to cut into that deficit either. The Hawks coasted the rest of the way to victory and with the win advance to the final play-in game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. The winner of Atlanta/Cleveland will become the No. 8 seed and face the Miami Heat in a best of seven series.

BOX SCORE (ACCUMULATIVE)

CHA: 23-29-24-

ATL: 32-28-42-

TEAM STATS (ACCUMULATIVE)

1st

CHA: 7/20 FG | 3/8 3FG | 11 REB | 8 PIP | 5 TOs 

ATL: 11/24 FG | 5/9 3FG | 15 REB | 8 PIP | 2 TOs

2nd

CHA: 18/48 FG | 8/22 3FG | 25 REB | 20 PIP | 8 TOs

ATL: 22/50 FG | 8/18 3FG | 30 REB | 20 PIP | 5 TOs

3rd

CHA: 26/69 FG | 9/28 3FG | 34 REB | 32 PIP | 11 TOs

ATL: FG | 3FG | 41 REB | 46 PIP | 5 TOs

4th

CHA: 34/90 FG | 13/41 3FG | 41 REB | 40 PIP | 14 TOs

ATL: 49/94 FG | 16/32 3FG | 54 REB | 54 PIP | 11 TOs

You can follow us for future coverage by liking us on Facebook & following us Twitter:

Facebook - All Hornets

Twitter - @SI_Hornets and Schuyler Callihan at @Callihan_.