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A back-and-forth final quarter that saw both the Hornets and Orlando Magic rally from significant deficits ended with Charlotte forward Gordon Hayward hitting a last-second go-ahead layup to help seal a 107-104 road victory on Sunday, Jan. 24 at Amway Center.
Hayward finished the night with a game-high 39 points on 15-of-25 shooting (5-of-8 from three) and a team-high nine rebounds in the win. This marks the fourth 30-point game of the season for the 11th-year veteran and the first time he’s crossed this particular barrier in consecutive games since April 4-7, 2017.
Trailing by 12 heading into the fourth, the Hornets ripped off a blistering 25-4 run to open the frame and take a 99-90 lead with just under four minutes remaining. Orlando continued to battle though, hitting shot after shot down the stretch and finally knotted the score at 104-104 following Terrence Ross’s off-balance corner three with eight seconds to go.
Following a Charlotte timeout, Hayward got the ball at the top of the key, drove left around defender Evan Fournier and then floated a lefty layup high off the glass and through the net, while narrowly avoiding the outstretched arm of Khem Birch in the process. Orlando was left just 0.7 seconds to respond and committed a five-second violation on the next possession, essentially ending the contest.
“I have great teammates and a coaching staff that are putting me in position to be successful,” said Hayward afterwards. “They hit some huge threes to tie it up. At the end of the game, I went right, went back left, the crowd kind of opened there and nobody [on Orlando] really helped, so I was able to hit the layup. I’m definitely happy that we won.”
“I thought there was a lot of growth out there,” added Hornets Head Coach James Borrego “It was a resilient win, this is a resilient group. I want to get off to better starts. It was not our finest 48 minutes of basketball, but we got better throughout the game. It was really ignited by our defense and Miles [Bridges] started that. [Gordon] was fantastic tonight. He was aggressive. He stepped up in the right moments and I give a lot of our other guys credit, too.”
Miles Bridges (18 points and six rebounds) and LaMelo Ball (11 points) both scored in double figures off the bench for Charlotte, with the latter also tacking on five rebounds and a game-high eight assists. Devonte’ Graham recovered from a rocky opening three quarters to finish with 15 points (11 in the fourth) and six assists and PJ Washington chipped in another nine points, three steals and two blocks.
Nikola Vučević finished with Orlando team highs in both scoring (22 points) and rebounding (13) to notch his 12th double-double of the season in the loss. Fournier (21 points), Gary Clark (14), Cole Anthony (14) and Ross (10) also had double-digit scoring performances for a Magic squad that was missing a number of key rotational players due to injury.
After a 20-turnover showing two nights earlier against Chicago, the Hornets had just 12 giveaways in the win, while shooting 48% and 39% from deep (14-of-36). Charlotte also outscored Orlando in the paint (44-36) and on the fast break (14-3), while the Magic connected on a season-high-tying 17-of-38 three-point attempts (45%).
These teams will meet again tomorrow night starting at 7 PM EST at the Amway Center in Orlando. Catch all the action on Fox Sports Southeast, the Fox Sports GO app and WFNZ 610 AM or 102.5 FM.