What: Charlotte Hornets (6-15) (1-9 away) at New York Knicks (13-7) (10-1 home)

When: 7:30pm Eastern

Where: Madison Square Garden; New York, NY

How to watch: FanDuel Sports Network, NBA League Pass

Outfitting: Hornets–Icon (teal), Knicks–Association (white)

Game Lines: Hornets +8.5, Hornets money line +295, O/U 235.5

Injuries:
Hornets: LaMelo Ball-probable (wrist), Brandon Miller-out (shoulder), Tre Mann-out (ankle), Pat Connaughton-out (calf), Josh Green-out (shoulder), Grant Williams-out (knee)

Knicks: OG Anunoby-out (hamstring), Mitchell Robinson-out (ankle), Landrey Shamet-out (shoulder)

The Hornets were brutally beaten by the Knicks one week ago today. That loss seemed to galvanize the boys to play two of their better games of the season with back to back wins over the Bulls and previously unstoppable Raptors. They let their guard down after those two wins and were beaten by a Nets team that hadn’t won at home yet in their next game. So who knows whether we’ll get the Hornets that were getting soundly beaten by anyone or the extra motivated bunch that beat the Raptors on Saturday.

The Knicks are coming off a loss to the Celtics in which they were outscored 73-44 in the middle two quarters. Prior to that loss, they had won four straight including victories over the Bucks and Raptors.

The usual suspects are going to be problems. Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns are doing their thing. We all know who they are at this point. But there is a new third constructing a Big Three that seems to have awoken during the Hornets game last week. Josh Hart scored a season high 22 points in the first meeting between these two teams and has followed that with scoring outputs of 19, 20, and 19 points, all of which are higher than his previous season high before the Hornets game. He’s averaging 20 per game over his last four after averaging less than 10 for the first 15 games of the season. He’s playing confident basketball right now, so the Hornets can’t sleep on him on the offensive end.

The Hornets will be without Brandon Miller once again as they manage his recovery from a shoulder subluxation in the second game of the season. He may have aggravated it a couple games ago.

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