This game was incredible.
The Charlotte Hornets may have had their franchise second best win streak snapped after nine games, 110-104, by the Detroit Pistons, but there was a bigger win tonight.
The Hornets found themselves trailing by eight with 7:09 to go in the third quarter and that's when all hell broke loose.
Jalen Duren was fouled by Moussa Diabate and that's when words were exchanged and it looked like Duren had is hand all up on the face of Diabate and gave a little push. Moussa proceeded to lose his mind and start going after Duren with full on swings.
Once some teammates and staff got control of Moussa, that's when Miles Bridges across the court starting pointing and eying Jalen Duren. Bridges slightly landed a punch on Duren which started a whole new scrum.
In that scrum, Isaiah Stewart, who wasn't even in the game, flew in from off the bench and landed some blows on Bridges.
The whole affair resulted in four players, Jalen Duren, Moussa Diabate, Miles Bridges, and Isaiah Stewart being ejected.
Fast forward to 5:54 to go in the fourth quarter with the Hornets trailing 99-88. That's when Grant Williams got called for a ticky tack offensive foul resulting in Charles Lee going nuts on the referee and being ejected.
It was one of those moments that a coach stood up for his players and even egged on the ejection once he realized he was getting tossed. That's something that only people who played sports tend to understand.
When you're in a high tense moment like that and you see your coach go to bat and ultimately get tossed for you, that does something to you as a player and a team.
The Hornets, from that moment on, proceeded to go on a run that included two massive back to back Kon Knueppel threes that cut the lead to six and felt like was going to take the lid off Spectrum Center.
Charlotte was able to get the lead all the way down to four, but were never able to catch up, snapping their nine game win streak.
However, the fan reaction to this game, the brawl, the ejections, the comeback late, almost made people appreciate this game more in loss. It felt like a playoff environment. It was loud. It was tense.
After the game, Charles Lee acknowledged that this was a "freaking great game". He clearly sees the bigger picture here. Tonight, a loss might actually benefit the Hornets more than continuing the win streak.
The Hornets had to dig deep and they found juice late in a tough situation against the best team in the East.
The main takeaway after this stretch since the turn of the new year and especially after tonight, the Charlotte Hornets are a good basketball team, they are ready to host playoff basketball (hopefully against Detroit), and fans that may have been on the fence about Charles Lee and this team based on years of past trauma, they have been won over.