The Hornets Couldn’t Sustain Momentum, Falling Behind as the Pelicans Made Their Final Push.

Well that one was just painful. Whatever could go wrong did go wrong for the Charlotte Hornets down the stretch of their 116-112 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans.

The New Orleans Pelicans came into this game as one of the two winless teams in the NBA, along side the Brooklyn Nets.

Tonight was also the second night in a row the Hornets were without Lamelo Ball who is dealing with an ankle injury. We learned yesterday that Brandon Miller's shoulder will be reevaluated in two weeks, too, so the injury bug is in full effect already for the two players that the Hornets could not afford to have happen to.

Tonight's loss to the Pelicans was also a reminder of something that Miles Bridges said after the loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves over the weekend. He pointed out that they have absolutely zero margin for error.

When you go back and take a look at the second half where Charlotte was out in front, that's very evident. The Hornets and Pelicans went blow for blow, but Charlotte was way too loose defensively, especially from the perimeter, which allowed New Orleans to slowly, but surely get into the position they were in with about three minutes and change to go where they retook the lead. The Hornets would never score again after that.

That perimeter breakdown defensively fore the Hornets was no more evident than with Jose Alvarado who hit two massive threes late that gave the Pelicans the lead. 

On the offensive side of the ball, as mentioned, the Hornets got to the 112 point mark and never scored again. They went the final 3:21 of the game without scoring. Tre Mann also had a couple of key turnovers that did not do Charlotte any favors.

The other thing tonight that was evident was Charles Lee's commitment to the youth movement. That's been a theme of this season with so many promising rookies, but I'm not even talking about Knueppel, James, or Kalkbrenner who continues to impress.

He made sure Liam McNeely and KJ Simpson specifically got plenty of minutes in this one, a lot of which came in the second half.

After the game Charles Lee didn't even seem phased, almost viewing this as a learning experience for all of the young guys. Charles Lee believes that this is the process they need to go through to learn how to win.

We'll see if that ends up paying off in the long run, but with impatient fans, they feel that Charles Lee sometimes plays around with his rotations too much down the stretch of games instead of focusing in on what he knows will win the ball game. Spoiler alert, fans can be a bit impatient.

It was certainly an ugly loss tonight in New Orleans, but the Hornets will have a chance to redeem themselves on Friday night in their first NBA Cup matchup with the Miami Heat.