The Charlotte Hornets are playing three of their next four contests on the road and will look to snap a four-game losing streak tonight when they head west to face the Memphis Grizzlies beginning at 8 PM EST.
It took a bit too long for the Charlotte offense to get going in the team’s 104-102 overtime loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday night, during which its first 18 three-point attempts all failed to clear the cylinder. A lack of execution and ball security towards the end of regulation and early in overtime sent the Hornets to another tough defeat.
“A three-day break, getting back in the gym, getting back to game speed,” said Terry Rozier afterwards when asked about the reasoning behind the slow start. “Just trying to make the best of it out there. Obviously, sometimes shots aren’t going to fall, but that’s part of the game. You just try to still take care of the defensive end and I feel like we did pretty well. We fought back, just came up short.”
Charlotte erased a 10-point deficit within the final two minutes of play in the first meeting with Memphis on Nov. 13 before rookie Ja Morant rolled in a contorted game-winning layup in traffic with just 0.7 seconds remaining. Rozier tallied a then career-high 33 points for Charlotte and Malik Monk added 20 points off the bench, with Morant (23 points and 11 assists) leading a Memphis squad that shot 17-of-35 from distance (48.6%) in the victory.
As expected, Morant leads Memphis and all NBA rookies in both scoring (17.9 PPG) and assists (6.4) with forward Jaren Jackson Jr. (21.0 PPG on 41.2% three-point shooting over last four games) and center Jonas Valančiūnas (19.6 PPG, 9.8 RPG and 1.2 BPG over last five games) both playing quite well as of late. First-year forward Brandon Clarke is also putting up 14.8 PPG on 68.0% shooting and 5.3 RPG over his last eight outings, all coming off the bench.
The Grizzlies enter this game ranked 19th in offensive rating (106.9) and just 24th in defensive rating (112.1), although are sixth in pace (103.52) and fourth in fast-break scoring (16.2). Keeping the turnovers low and playing great transition defense will be key for the Hornets as they look to snag a fifth consecutive victory at the FedEx Forum.
Game Notes: Charlotte has won its last four regular season appearances in Memphis by an average of 14.8 PPG (last loss: Dec. 12, 2014 in double overtime)… The Grizzlies will be playing in Denver on Saturday night. They are 2-2 this season on the second leg of back-to-back sets.