Hornets Go Back to Drawing Board
Atlanta's record rout makes the home opener a question, and Reid is not it.
Hawks 128, Hornets 81 at Spectrum Center.
THE MOMENT
The boos started before the Hornets reached the tunnel.
A sellout crowd of 19,524 came to Spectrum Center on Friday night to welcome a new era. At halftime, with Atlanta up 68-43, they sent the home team off the floor with the oldest review in sports.
Two nights after Charlotte won its opener at Brooklyn, the high lasted exactly one game. The home opener became something else: the first home game since the franchise traded LaMelo Ball, and a 128-81 loss that set an Atlanta record.
THE FREEZE
Doubt. Not the quiet kind, the loud kind, in your own building, on opening night.
THE HUMAN
Start with the man who was not the problem.
Naz Reid, the centerpiece of the return in the Ball trade, led Charlotte in scoring for the second straight game, 17 points and six rebounds in his home debut, the only Hornet above 11. Two nights earlier in Brooklyn he posted 20 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists.
Reid was not a question coming in. He is not a question now.
The question wore the new contract. Brandon Miller signed a franchise-record five-year, $209 million extension this week, the deal that makes him the face of whatever comes after Ball. On Friday he shot 2-for-14, 1-for-11 from three, for six points.
"Some of this, we are still trying to learn each other, figure out offensive systems, where to be," coach Charles Lee said afterward.
Two games in, the learning is happening in public.
THE SACRIFICE
Here is the ledger, and it is not really about one night.
Charlotte traded the most popular player in the building's recent memory, a widely unpopular decision, and asked a shorthanded roster to sell the future to a sellout crowd. That is a hard sell at full strength. Without its starting point guard, its rookie-of-the-year runner-up and a veteran forward, it bordered on impossible.
Reid paid part of the bill himself: seven of the 25 turnovers came from the man doing the most creating. When creation falls to a center because the guards are in street clothes, the turnovers are not carelessness alone. They are the cost of a roster asked to be something it is not, yet.
And the ledger allows no recovery days. Miami, with Giannis Antetokounmpo, is in this building Saturday night.
THE RECEIPT
- Record Hawks rout in Charlotte
- Reid is not the question
- Miller and injuries under the lights
SCOREBOARD
Atlanta 128, Charlotte 81. The 47-point margin is the largest victory in Hawks history, passing the 46-point win over Sacramento on Nov. 15, 2017. Atlanta led 33-20 after one quarter, 68-43 at the half and 97-62 after three.
NOTE 1
Jalen Johnson ran it: 19 points, eight assists, seven rebounds. Aaron Wiggins matched him with 19 off the bench. All five Atlanta starters scored in double figures, and Dyson Daniels took the ball away seven times by himself. The Hawks shot 50.5 percent.
NOTE 2
Charlotte shot 34.5 percent, went 11-for-51 from three, 2-for-15 in the first quarter alone, and turned the ball over 25 times, worth 22 Atlanta points. The Hornets played their second straight game without Kon Knueppel (hamstring), Coby White (calf) and Grant Williams (hamstring), and Lee said before the game there is no timetable for any of them.
THE VOICES
Some of this, we are still trying to learn each other, figure out offensive systems, where to be.
When things aren't going your way, what is your focus gonna be? Are we going to look for excuses? Are we gonna look for people to bail us out of those tough times, or are we gonna band together and try to figure it out on our own?
Afterward, Lee did not reach for the injury report.
"It was a good learning experience for our entire group tonight," he said. "When things aren't going your way, what is your focus gonna be? Are we going to look for excuses? Are we gonna look for people to bail us out of those tough times, or are we gonna band together and try to figure it out on our own?"
He called much of the damage "self-inflicted wounds." Both things are true: the wounds were self-inflicted, and the circumstances handed them the knife.
THE TAKE
FINAL VERDICTSo it is back to the drawing board, not for the whole season, but with the whole season watching.
One night does not grade the Ball trade. It does not bury a team that won 44 games a year ago. But the drawing board now holds specific assignments: protect the ball, find shooting that does not depend on a sniper nursing a hamstring, and get Miller's game back under the weight of that contract.
Reid is not the question. He never was. The question is how much a team can ask of the people who stayed, and how honestly it answers on the nights the answer is: not this.
Every season has a night that tells the truth early. The good teams do not argue with it. They write it down, and they go back to work.
Miami arrives in 24 hours. The drawing board gets graded fast.
Andre D. Williams
More than the final score. DRE'S TAKE: the story behind the performance.
Credits: Quotes, Charles Lee via Sports Illustrated and Yardbarker. Scores and lines via Reuters/Field Level Media (Deadspin), Associated Press (TheScore/Sportsnet), RotoWire, NBC Sports, and the official box score. Miller extension and absences via AP.
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