Hornets GET BULLIED By Magic | Charles Lee’s Lineup EXPERIMENT Fails | LaMelo Ball FINED $35K!

Hornets GET BULLIED By Magic | Charles Lee’s Lineup EXPERIMENT Fails | LaMelo Ball FINED $35K!

The Hornets take a second straight divisional rival beatd down. They make another lineup change and I give you plenty of opportunities to vent in the Siko Vent session later in the show. Stick with us. Locked on Hornets game recap edition. You are Locked on Hornets. Your daily Charlotte Hornets podcast. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network. your team every day. In a minute, cuz we live. [Music] Well, you know, at least it wasn’t 144 points allowed. You know, it was only I’m looking at the box score here. It was only 123. Now, the Hornets only scored 107 points as they lose to the Orlando Magic in Spectrum Center uh to fall to two and three. Uh but you know, you could consider that in some respects progress or you can consider it a second straight divisional rival beatd down, which is what the Hornets took in uh this one. Uh tough game for the home team. But look, the Hornets knew that they were the smaller and the less physical team coming into this game. And they also knew, I’m going to assume here that they knew that the Orlando Magic were coming into Spectrum Center desperate for a win. This is an Orlando Magic team that had NBA Finals aspirations, NBA championship aspirations after last season. And yes, they’ve got some injuries. Suggs set out of this game. They’re they’re managing him. Mo Vagner not in this game, but they get Fran Vagner. They get the the good Vagner back. Uh he was questionable. He got upgraded to available. Um he plays well for them. Paulo’s healthy and so they had big goals and then they start the season one and four and offensively they still looked like a disaster and so they get embarrassed by Detroit on the first night of a backto-back. So they come to Spectrum Center on the second night and like if you’re Charles Lee it’s your responsibility to remind the team and I’m sure he did like hey this team is going to come for your neck if you let them. Okay. But like knowing something and being able to do something about it are vastly different things. They live on they live on two sides of of a canyon and the Hornets just fell down the canyon in this game. They were bullied at the rim by Vagner, by Carol. Uh they were out they were outrun by uh the the Orlando Magic because they were turning the basketball over at a crazy rate. Uh 29 points I believe was the final uh points off of turnover score for the Orlando Magic. Just too many bad turn really bad turnovers. You know, it wasn’t, hey, I’m trying to make a play. It was, hey, I don’t know what to do and so the ball’s going to come out of my hands. And it’s like the Hornets uh and we’re going to get to lineup changes and different things like that, but they’re relying so much on inexperienced players. like the rookies are playing better than we expected, but they’re still rookies. There’s still a lack of experience on this team and and so and it’s a young team, you know, even if you take the rookies away, even if you inserted all of the injured players, Brandon Miller, Grant Williams, Josh Green, it would still be a young team. I don’t know like how that would dial in. I I honestly I think they’re still one of the youngest teams even when you factor in all those guys, right? But what those three guys would have provided would be would have been some skill, some size, some physicality, and that’s really what they lacked in this game, and it’s what Orlando really took advantage of. I think they came into this game saying, “If we can’t beat the Charlotte Hornets because of the way they’ve been playing defensively lately, if we can’t do it, then, you know, maybe just pack it up because we can’t we’re not going to be able to do it against anybody.” And they did it. 123 points uh scored against the Charlotte Hornets. Uh so look that we knew the defense was going to be an issue. Uh it’s but it’s apocalyptic like they just they cannot defend and the mistakes were across the board. It wasn’t just the rookies. It wasn’t just LaMelo Ball. Um it was it was inattentiveness. It was just not being able to stay in front of a guy. Palenco bullying Miles Bridges uh just outmatching him. Um, and so then then that starts to leak into the offensive confidence and there was just no offensive rhythm in this game. That’s just the best way to say it. There was no they were not playing music. Uh, well, they were they were playing a musical instrument, but it was just way out of tune for most of this game. Uh, except for the back half of the third quarter. I mean, that’s the thing to understand about this game, too. It’s not This wasn’t Well, I don’t know if it it might have been wire towire technically, but it wasn’t like, oh, they got up 20 and just stayed up 20 the entire game. It wasn’t an embarrassing loss in that sense because they did make runs in the third quarter, 900, 70 to get the margin, you know, down to three to five at certain points. And, you know, Bridges, who struggled for most of this game, had a good third quarter, eight points. LaMelo Ball 63 and four in the third. Colin Ston provided just that spark plug off the bench. We’ll get to the lineup changes here in a minute, I swear. Um, but Colin Ston off the bench providing that spark plug um in in the third quarter. So, they made runs, but ultimately it was too big of a hole. You see it all the time, make the comeback and then not be be able to finish it. Um, but it was offensively it was bad passes like criminally bad passes uh from Tan Salon, from Miles Bridges, from Khan Canipple, from Ryan Cochr Brener. I mean, just like passes that just some of them had no shot. Trey man, uh, zero assists in this game for Trey Man. How many turnovers did he end up with? Um, so turnovers only two, but yeah, surprising. Zero assists from Trey B, who had been that bit that that was like sort of one of the things that we paid attention to in the preseason. Like, man, this guy is this guy’s dealing some dimes right now. Sort of transitioning his role from secondary scorer to I’m going to facilitate more of the offense. And it just didn’t happen for Trey man tonight. there. This game was a little bit like whenever LaMelo Ball was on the floor, there was some functioning level of offense and whenever he was off the floor, there was no functioning of the offense, but it was bad passes. I mentioned that, weak screens, lazy shot selection, LaMelo Ball stepping back uh into some wild threes, Miles Bridges stepping back into some wild threes um that that really just plagued the team all night all night long. And they didn’t even play with the same tempo. And that’s where you look at this game and you go, how much of this was the Hornets choosing not to do something? And how much of it was Orlando imposing a will early, getting them all the way out of rhythm and the Hornets not really having that sort of experience to lean on and and the knowing of each other to lean on to where you can work yourself out of that and work yourself back into something. It’s like if the Hornets don’t start the game with some kind of with some kind of success, I I think this team has found it very difficult to really uh now and really it can start in the first quarter, it can start in the third quarter because we’ve seen them, you know, struggle a little bit going into the going into the second half and then the second half getting things started and snowballing that into a victory like they did against the Wizards. But if they don’t get off to those starts, then it can be really difficult for them uh to to to get back in. And I think good teams can do that. Good teams can suddenly in the fourth quarter after having three terrible quarters in the fourth quarter be a be able to pull something out. And you do wonder if the constant lineup changes, the experimentation that we’ve seen from Charles Lee may be a part of this. You know, some of it I’m sure is a function of not having like if if they had Grant Williams healthy and Josh Green healthy and Brandon Miller healthy. I’m pretty certain Lee would have already established a starting lineup and a rotation and just stuck with it and said, “All right, we’re going to work through whatever issues we have. We’re going to work through it.” I think with those three guys out, I wonder I don’t know, but I just wonder if Charles Lee looks at it and says like, you know, I’ve been doing this long enough. I know what winning teams look like. I know what teams that can that have the ability to defend. I know what those look like. This is not it. So, let’s let’s look at whatever we need to look at. Even if it means giving up 144 points, even if it means giving up 123 points. But the cost of that, the tradeoff that you make in that is that you’re also not allowing this team to really get any kind of rhythm going. You’re not Clifford used talked about this all the time, both individually like knowing how much you’re going to play and where you’re going to play and who you’re going to play with, the playing groups. He thought that was important for player success. Um, and then just like everybody knowing where everybody else is going to be defensively, also offensively. Although, you know, I think that hurts them in the half court more than anything because like transition wise in this game, you know, you saw LaMelo Ball get up to Musa several times like when they were free flowing in the offense, things look good. uh when they were in when they got stopped at all, when they were in the half court at all. Um you know, the some of the similar issues to Miami where they were driving and and getting uh getting sent back. Uh but just that like inside out offense where we were seeing LaMelo Ball juke and jive through the lane and come back out the other side, Steve Nashian, like Coniple doing the same thing. all that stuff that we saw when they were successful against the Nets and the Wizards. Just not seeing any of that against Miami against good defenses. You know, that’s the thing. They cannot penetrate find their way through good defenses. Um, and you know, the only people that really had offensive success in this game by like efficiency standards would be Ryan Cochr Brener. Like that guy can’t miss. He’s eight of nine from the field, 17 points, seven rebounds. But, uh, but yeah, I mean it was it was a difficult night. Hornets starting lineup minus 6 minus 28.6 net rating. Uh 142.9 defensive rating just got absolutely shellacked. And the and the lineup change for this one. I guess I should have mentioned it before I talked about the lineup changes and how they affected it. Seion James gets inserted. So first time in franchise history that they start three rookies. And look again, they they’re senior rookies. Uh guys that have either play they played a lot of college or they uh you know like Khan Canipple just has like probably second or third year college IQ coming into the league as opposed to you know having only played one year and uh you know that’s fine. That’s great. But it’s just they’re still inexperienced. They’re still going to get taken advantage of by teams like Orlando that have been together a few years and know what the deal is. All right, so coming up on Lockdown Hornets everywhere. Uh let’s let’s dig down into some individual performances. I want to get to some Lee quotes and then uh I put it out to the SEO brigade on the subtext line jointex.comlockdown hornets. I said vent session just give me all you got. So I’m going to go as rapid fire as I can. I’m going to read uh if they’re safe, if they’re safe for air. Honestly, I’m going to kind of go blind and try not to get in trouble. We’ll see what happens later on in the show. Stick around. Locked on Hornets. [Music] Today’s episode of Lockd On Hornets is brought to you by our friends at Pelaton. Pelaton. They’re shaping the future of fitness with this brand new Pelaton crossraining tread plus. It’s powered by Pelaton IQ. It’s their most advanced equipment yet. It’s designed to give you real-time guidance and endless ways to move. Whether you’re running, lifting, uh, cross trainining with your favorite instructors. This is training reimagined. Pelaton’s built. It’s built for breakthroughs with tools that help you plan, stay motivated, and reach your peak performance. I love how the Pelaton IQ system offers real time strength coaching. Right. It’s real time. 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We would love for them to get a win, I think, uh again, uh and and maybe they’ll get an opportunity to this weekend. Uh but it wasn’t meant to be in this one. Uh I was mentioning some of the lineup stats. The best lineup in this game, by the way, it was not the starting lineup. It was LaMelo Ball. It was Seion James. He was in the best lineup. So, if if you you know, I I read those like minus 28.6 net rating. I don’t know if that was Seon. And Cion played good defense, you know, to me. And the reason I think Cion got put in the lineup is because you had Desmond Bane out there. You had some guys out there that you wanted Cion to match up with size and strengthwise. He’s got some poundage on Colin Ston, right? So like I get sort of where Lee is coming from. But it’s it’s almost like I think he’s overthinking this a little bit. Like he’s treating this team uh as if it doesn’t have four rookies. Like he’s treating this team as if like all right, I’m going to just operate. But sometimes you got to just understand what you have and what you don’t have and maybe just try to find something that works and stick with it. Uh what worked in this game though was Ball Seon Bridges Cockprinter. Okay, I just named the four starters. Who was the fifth guy? Wasn’t Coniple. It wasn’t the guy who started the game. It was Colin Ston. So that’s where I think the overthinking comes from is that Colin Son, yes, he is a little bit of a slider guy, but he can be an impactful defender uh just because of his effort and he’s he’s going to come up with some of those 50-50 loose balls he did in this game. I mean, he’s hitting the hitting the floor every chance he got. So, uh the worst lineups though was any second quarter lineup that featured man running the point. And again, I think that was somewhat man uh over dribbling. Still trying to find his rhythm. Uh Lee, for his part, was confident pregame that Trey man would find it. I know that a lot of people that listen to this show, a lot of people that follow me on Twitter are not confident. Uh but he said, quote, “He missed some time and a new style of play. Takes a little bit of time, but I have full confidence in Trey to get back to Tricky Trey.” But the question is like, do you want him to get back to Tricky Trey if he’s got a new role? like Tricky Trey was the old role and that’s where I think so I think that’s where the confusion is for Trey man and for the team is like what do you want Trey to be and does is Trey comfortable with that or is he like ah I signed a contract you tell me what to do I’ll try to do it you know what I’m saying like I mean I’ve gone into jobs like that right where it’s like all right well you know the the money’s good and you know all right I’ll I’ll I’ll see what I can do here you know I can make it work but if your heart’s not like if your heart’s not in it. If you’re like, “That’s not the kind of player I am. That’s not the kind of employee I am. That’s not the kind of work I want to do.” You can you can try hard. You can give it a you can give it your all, but if you’re not like totally aligned with that thing, it’s going to be very difficult to like fully access whatever you need to access to be the most successful version of you in that role. Uh but those lineups got murdered in that second quarter when the you know the lead for for Orlando started to balloon and they saved it in the third. But um yeah with with LaMelo ball off the floor I mean LaMelo was able to create some things particularly in transition a little bit in the half court where the offense could function somewhat and once he was off the floor and man was in control of the offense it was much more difficult. And that’s where again like having Brandon Miller in that situation I think would have helped because you can you can give him the ball and ask him to initiate offense both for himself and others like he was starting to do that a little bit better. I thought you know I saw that in the preseason I saw that in in the Nets game. Uh and then to lose that immediately is just very difficult. Grant Williams also another player that can you know particularly from the mid post can set up a lot of things in the corner can do some different things there uh from the post up position. uh you just lose all that. Uh but that that brings me to Miles Bridges. Uh not good in this game. 16 points, five rebounds, zero assist, minus 17 in the game. Shot 40% from the field. Uh a lot of that again was the third quarter, the first half. I think he was like one of seven, one of eight. Uh three turnovers, two fouls in this game. Uh only one block. So, Walker Mail, my co-host, asked Charles Lee about his shooting percentages in general, like just being under 40%, not being a very efficient offensive player. And Charles Lee said that Miles’s shot selection from three, he mentioned that like that not being very good. And we saw it in this game. We saw more of the, you know, step back threes, the sideep threes that didn’t work for him at all last season. and when he was at his best in the preseason and when he’s best when he’s been his best for halves at a time this season, he gets away from that entirely and gets into the flow of the offense. Uh so Lee does mention that specifically. So it’s obviously something they’re trying to make a point with him on, but he also mentions his responsibility in guarding the best offensive wing on the other side. And so there again is sort of the ripple effects of not having the three guys that I just mentioned, Miller, Green, and Grant Williams. The little ripple effect there. But it’s also just once again we’re running into this whole situation where it’s like you’re asking Miles to do something that he can’t which is like something that star players do which is like hey go guard the best guy. Well I there’s two types of stars right? There’s the kind of star that you say actually you don’t have as many responsibilities on defense because we know you can score 40 any given night. Well he’s not that guy. Uh he can score it occasionally. You can score it three or four times a year, but it’s not going to be somebody that you’re like, “Okay, is he, you know, I would lay down a little money that he might get to 40 tonight. You’re never going to do that with Miles.” Okay. So, then is he the other type of guy where it’s like, “I’m going to ask you to take the best wing and to be a factor offensively. Not the factor, but a factor.” And I don’t know that he’s that guy either. So, then it’s like that’s going to limit, I think, the trade value along with him not having the playoff experience. Um, so it’s, you know, it’s difficult. Like I I think the best version of Miles Bridges is probably like the fourth best player on your team. So, uh, I think what we’re dealing with a lot of the similar things from last season where like he’s being put in a position u, but yeah, I mean the the decisions were bad, the offense was bad. um that when you take these beatings like they have against Miami and and Orlando, like it’s it’s not going to be one guy’s fault. Um but you know, particularly when you look at the struggles that the starting lineup had. I said it wasn’t Seion. I mean, it was LaMelo and Miles just missing shot after shot after shot and then LaMelo and Miles both having issues defensively. Miles just not being able to match up with Paulo Beno, uh, just getting trucked and then LaMelo just going under screens that he just had no business going under, losing track of guys, you know, just some of the similar stuff. I will say to LaMelo’s credit, like later in the game when they were making that run in the third quarter, it was because LaMelo was not only doing it offensively, he was also like making defensive efforts. He was knocking, he was disrupting passes, he was knocking balls out, he was getting, you know, getting on the floor. like some of the things that at times we see LaMelo do. It’s just you’ve got to start the game like that. You got to start the game like that. You got to finish the game like that. You know, if you slip up and have a weird second quarter, okay, but you got to set a tone and you got to finish a tone. That’s, you know, that’s where it’s been generally uh generally lacking. By the way, uh news here. Maybe Walker and I Walker’s going to be solo this weekend, either Friday or Saturday. Uh but maybe I don’t know probably we probably won’t talk about it so I’ll just talk about it here. LaMelo Ball fined $35,000 by the league for an obscene uh gesture towards the ref. I talked about this on my solo show a couple of shows ago. Seemed like he flipped off a ref. No confirmation in this but uh you know it’s an obscene gesture. How many of those do we have uh here in America other than flipping somebody the bird? There’s a picture online. I’m sure you’ve seen it. Um, look, I’m not going to moralize and like, please think of the children on somebody flipping the bird. You know, Anthony Edwards has done it. Uh, a couple other guys, Vuchich was one guy that I looked up and, uh, he’s done it. Like, guys get fined for this. It’s not a it’s it’s not a big deal in terms of like, oh my god, like I can’t believe he did this. It’s but it is it is a big deal in that it’s a symptom of like a maturity issue and an emotional IQ control issue the ball continues to grapple with and like this is a game in October. What what if this is a game in May when again you’re down 2-1 in the series and you’re down 10 points in the fourth quarter and the calls aren’t going your way and by the way in the you know in the playoffs whistles get eaten you know what happens then that would be my only kind of question to ask on on the bird stuff on flipping flipping off an official like you know Miles Bridges went through this a little bit in the playin game where it’s like The pressure cooker changes you. I don’t even know if it changes you. It just like exposes you. It expo whatever you’ve got going on inside in terms of your your perseverance, your metal, the the things that make proathletes so special like their ability to forget bad performances, bad quarters, bad halves. Like it challenges all of that stuff constantly. And you know, sometimes it makes legends, sometimes it makes Tyresese Hallebertton’s, and then sometimes it washes guys out or it or it or it writes the book on a guy like, okay, here’s the limit to what this guy can do. So that’s all, you know, that’s all I would just sort of put to you as you think about what happened there. Um, yeah, again, Horn has started three rookies. Uh they they’ve been playing well, but Khan Canipple largely ineffective in this game. I thought he had a lot of trouble navigating the Magic’s length, their athleticism. Um Seion made a couple of mistakes defensively, a pair of backb breaking turnovers as well. Um, Canipple too, like and Oglesby mentioned this on the broadcast too, like assertiveness issue in this game where when the passing lanes went away and they did need to make they needed to have guys make plays in in less than ideal situations. he was a little bit unwilling to do that, you know. So, that’s going to be the question that Khan Kipple sort of has to answer for the rest of the season and probably the rest of the like for the couple of seasons that he has here to sort of where we find out where his ceiling is is when the defense tightens up, is he going to be able to make a play for himself? You know, that’s that’s where you go, okay, well, now this guy that we thought was this thing, you know, now he’s this other thing. We thought he might have been a Kispert, but now actually he might be an Austin Reeves or we thought he was going to be what and now he’s this, right? Okay. Not a final thing here as I’m just sort of going down uh the list of players here. Clock Brener was made some mistakes, too, but like was the only rookie that I thought was like super functional. Just continues to be the trash panda scooping up the garbage. Uh 17 points, seven rebounds, eight of nine shooting. Uh four stocks. I mean, they really they really found something there in the second round. Amazing. Final thing, Ton, man before he picked up garbage minutes at the end of the game had only played five minutes and just made some disastrous passes. Here’s a problem with Ton. It makes no sense to play him from like a skill perspective, a readiness perspective, a please don’t kill this possession perspective because when you’re talking about offensive rhythm, uh the way Steve Clifford used to put this is you got to have guys out there that allow you uh that allow you to play good basketball. that allow you to play good basketball, that don’t get in the way of good basketball, right? That’s what Tan does. Unfortunately, that’s where he is right now in his game. Um but but at the same time, because of all the size issues that I just mentioned with Orlando, like he kind of got to play him. That’s where we are. But but but he got to the point where he was like, I can’t do it anymore. Charles Lee said, I can’t do it anymore. Only five minutes until he picked up some garbage minutes later in the game. All right, coming up on Locked on Hornets. Bees everywhere. I’ve shared enough of my thoughts. It’s time to get to some of your thoughts. We’re going to do a little sicko event session. I’m going to go to the Seiko Brigade. Uh, and boy, uh, you folks had some thoughts, a lot of responses, uh, as I threw it out to the Seiko Brigade. We’ll get to that coming up here on Locked on Hornets. [Music] Today’s episode of Locked On Hornets is brought to you by Robin Hood. Your ambition just met its match. With Robin Hood, you play for the win. Not just on game day, every day. Locking in on every opening, beating your PR, beating it again. Channel that drive into your money. Robin Hood puts you in control of your money. Trade stocks and ETFs, options, futures, and crypto all in one platform. You can now build and execute your own trades from a uh desktop with Robin Hood Legends advanced tools or take advantage of the new Robin Hood strategies with a tailored portfolio managed by a team of experts. You expect more from yourself, expect more from your money. Get started today at robinhood.com/yyoumoney. Again, that’s robinhood.com/youmoney. Your money, your move. More Lockdown Hornets ahead. [Music] All right, let’s move through the Siko satchel here. The Siko Vince session uh that uh I asked for your thoughts. Let’s go first to Anita of the 24th Plumbley Division. Lots of thoughts here. Our rookies all individually look better than Trey Mann. Yes, rough game I thought from Trey Mann. Uh game score-wise, 2.5 on the game score. Uh that was only better than Pat Coneton who played two minutes. Tan Salon who only played seven minutes and was a minus.7. And then Khan Caniple is the bottom of the game score in this one negative one. Uh true shooting percentage of 41%. That’s Booty. He was a minus 20. Five points, three rebounds, one assist. Um so Anita, I get your thought, but actually Khan Canipple looked worse than Trey man in this one. Uh Miles back to his old ways. Can’t find his offense until the game is too far gone. I’m glad we’re experimenting with Moose and Cochrer lineups, but it won’t work unless Cockprinter spaces the floor better by shooting threes. So, this is a good point. you know, cockprint are doing so much damage in the garbage and that’s like that’s a skill, but to reach their full potential, as Anita is saying here, they’ve got to be able to space the floor because teams don’t teams still don’t respect the three-point shooting for the Charlotte Hornets. And when they when they’re not on, like they were not on tonight, uh that can be very difficult. All right, let’s go to some let’s go to some more sickos here. Uh, this one is going to come from, let’s keep going down here. Okay, we’ve got some thoughts from Ben from the seventh Dwayne Bacon division. Down by 13 late in the fourth and Charles decides to throw out a brand new two big defensive lineup. Yes, yes, yes. I’m glad you mentioned this. Melo Ston, Miles, Musa, Cochrinter. How are we supposed to score with that group? We needed an offensive barrage to give any chance of coming back and we put out a lineup with two and a half shooters. Not to mention LaMelo’s second straight collapse of scoring and effort in the second half. When his shots not falling and the deficit widens, LaMelo is just unable to collect himself and play smart basketball. It’s like he gets bored and wants to get the game over with. He’s the most talented Hornet in our team’s history and a lot of the criticism around him is unfair, but man does his mentality get in the way uh sometimes. Um, yeah. I mean, I think in that was a game where, you know, particularly in the second half, a lot of guys were forcing things because there weren’t a lot of answers because of they were because they weren’t shooting well and because the Magic did a great job of almost taking everything away that made the Hornets great in that win against Brooklyn, and that win against Washington. They just took it all away. And that’s what great defenses can do. Um, particularly to inexperienced offenses. So, you know, I don’t put, you know, I thought LaMelo had some some good moments in this game and some bad moments, but like I didn’t think this was like a particularly awful LaMelo game. Um, but it was difficult for him to operate in the half court. And it’s like, you know, would I like him to drive the basketball more? Sure. I think a lot of people would. Uh, I think Charles Lee would, but um, yeah, to the two big lineup, I thought that was interesting, too. You know, I think at that point that may have been just a further experimentation or or just a recognition that they were just getting beat up. And it’s like, let’s try this too big thing and see if we can just make some LaMelo magic here. Give him a little bit of I mean, it doesn’t give him a room really to operate from three because the floor or really operate around the rim because the floor isn’t spaced out. Um, but you know, I think that was throwing some stuff up against the wall. Um, I’m not sure. Maybe he just wanted to see what it looked like. Um, yeah, I think the lineup decisions at the beginning of the game were much more questionable than the lineup decisions at the end of the game. Um, all right. Here’s another one from Oh, okay. This is 488. I’m not sure. Oh, no. No. This is Andrew from the 31st Rambus Brigade. Okay. I think this is one of the newer sickos and I need to put it in the notes that this is who this person is so that I remember next time. All right, Andrew from the 31st Rambis Brigade shout out. Here’s my vented thought. The Hornets played like a team that knows Brandon Miller is out for the season. Whoa. Okay. Okay. I I you know, no idea how long he’s going to be out. Um, but that’s an interesting thought that they’re sort of playing like, “All right, we’ve got to figure this out on our own because Brandon’s not coming back.” I don’t know. Um, that’s Yeah, now I know that they asked Charles Lee about Brandon Miller. They continue to ask him about it and he said he felt better. Uh, but they haven’t confirmed anything about other than what they’ve already confirmed, you know, in terms of timeline or anything. Um, Andrew also says, “Just a thoroughly depressing basketball game. I watched a pretty bad team sleepwalk to basket after basket against us. Twice as many turnovers as made threes.” Well, I push back a little bit there, Andrew. I mean, I think the Magic were sleepwalking through their first couple of games. And I I think this for them, they targeted as a get right game and they got right. And the Hornets should have known that. You know, I think we’d all feel differently about this game had they been a little bit had they gotten a lead and lost it. Had they like been a little bit more competitive, you know. I think that’s the problem with this game. Not that they lost it, you know, because I think that it’s it’s yeah, it’s it’s the way in which they got handled and allowed themselves to be handled, you know. Um, we got a thought here. Headed to the game on Saturday. Just looking forward to a bounceback game. Yeah, they’re going to need it. Uh, this is Bam Bam of the 21st Ricky Pierce Division, aka the Flying Big Paper Daddies. I like that positive like the positive vibes there. And Walker’s going to be uh helping to get you to that game and uh get the get the preview out. All right. Uh, let me do a few more here. This is from This is good. I’m I’m glad that this is allowing you. Hopefully, this helps some people get to sleep tonight. This is Davis of the ETH Bismac Brigade. Temper your expectations, folks. Improvement doesn’t mean winning. Oh, and your team leaders, the guys you need to show up every night. How about you show up and look like you care? I mean, my god, Miles Bridges, that was dreadful. Strong statement by Davis. Yeah. Yeah, I mean the the the guys you would think like Miles Bridges having been called whatever he was called by LaMelo Ball at halftime or of of the Wizards game would then like respond out of that not just by being better in the second half of that game, but like just continuing to be better, continuing not to fall back into the old habits. But that’s just not that’s not what we’re seeing. And maybe it is the defensive responsibilities, but that’s like to me that’s like I don’t know. We’ve been hearing that for a long time. And you may maybe it’s an NBA truism, but maybe maybe you should you have to expect more. Like what what else are we going to do? Say, well, you know, I don’t know. He’s just that’s just who he is, so we can’t you know. No. I mean, they’re, you know, they have to make a decision whether or not to keep him and fans have to make a decision on whether or not they would like the team to keep him or not. So, there you go. All right, that’s it for me. Uh, thanks for sharing all of your thoughts. If I didn’t share them here on the show, I’ll try to uh respond to them. Uh, but until then, thanks so much for subscribing, supporting the show. Go Hornets. Go America. Let’s warm Charlotte. I’ll see you next week. Walker will see you in a day or two. [Music]

The Hornets get bullied by a desperate Orlando Magic team, highlighting a lack of physicality and “apocalyptic” defensive issues. We also examine LaMelo Ball’s $35,000 fine as a symptom of a larger maturity problem

Welcome to Locked On Hornets. The team has taken a second straight divisional rival beatdown, this time losing 123-107 to the Orlando Magic. This was a game where the Hornets knew they were the smaller, less physical team, and the desperate Magic took full advantage. Orlando bullied the Hornets at the rim, and the Hornets’ offense collapsed, giving up 29 points off turnovers.

We’ll spend time on the individual struggles, starting with LaMelo Ball. He was just fined $35,000 by the league for an obscene gesture, which points to a larger maturity and emotional control issue that the star continues to grapple with. Miles Bridges also had a difficult night, getting physically handled by Paolo Banchero and reverting to the poor step-back threes that Charles Lee has noted.

We also have to address the rookie wall. Kon Knueppel looked “largely ineffective” against Orlando’s length, and Sion James made some costly errors. Charles Lee’s decision to start three rookies is part of a larger experimentation with the lineups, but it’s fair to ask if this is hurting the team’s ability to find any rhythm. The one consistent bright spot remains Ryan Kalkbrenner, the “trash panda” who continues to be hyper-efficient, scoring 17 points on 8-of-9 shooting. Finally, we open the mailbag for a fan “Sicko Vent Session”

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