The Charlotte Hornets will try to add to their hottest stretch in a decade when the New Orleans Pelicans visit on Monday night.<\/p>\n
The Hornets have been on the rise and are having sustained success, winning seven of their past eight games.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s their connectiveness. It\u2019s the work they put in every day together,\u201d Hornets coach Charles Lee said of his players. \u201cThat group has really found a way. \u2026 It has been fun to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Charlotte\u2019s six-game winning streak represents its longest in nearly 10 years. The Hornets last reached seven in a row in the first two weeks of March 2016, which coincides with the last time they made the NBA playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re coming,\u201d Hornets guard Collin Sexton said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to take an everyday process. It\u2019s not going to happen overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pelicans lost 124-114 to the host Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday night despite Saddiq Bey\u2019s 34 points.<\/p>\n
Former Hornets coach James Borrego has been New Orleans\u2019 interim coach since Willie Green was fired in mid-November.<\/p>\n
While Brandon Miller has taken over the Hornets\u2019 role as leading scorer (20.8 points per game), there are a variety of players \u2014 think LaMelo Ball, Miles Bridges and Kon Knueppel \u2014 who can emerge as the go-to guy in any given game. Lee said it\u2019s practical to make sure at least a couple of them are on the court at all times as he tries to manage the wear and tear for his players.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you don\u2019t have too many reserves having to do more than they\u2019re used to doing,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n
Miller has been Charlotte\u2019s top scorer in eight of the past nine games. His 26 points Saturday led six players with a dozen or more points in an 111-106 home victory against the San Antonio Spurs.<\/p>\n
Some of the Hornets\u2019 depth could be in question, though. Josh Green logged 11 scoreless minutes Saturday after uncertainty about his availability due to an Achilles ailment. He has played in every game of the winning streak.<\/p>\n
The Pelicans won the first meeting with Charlotte this season, prevailing 116-112 on Nov. 4 at home when Trey Murphy III\u2019s 21 points led eight New Orleans players in double figures. Murphy, who averages 21.5 points per game, will be back in his home state of North Carolina for the Monday game.<\/p>\n
Borrego has been waiting on Murphy to snap out of a shooting slump. He has hit just 7 of 40 3-point attempts across the past four games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI continue to trust him and believe in him and tell him to let it fly,\u201d Borrego said. \u201cShoot the next open one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bey has led the Pelicans in scoring in four of their past six games. Zion Williamson is the team\u2019s leading scorer at 21.7 points per game. He has played in 35 of the Pelicans\u2019 51 contests. He missed the first Pelicans-Hornets matchup, as did Miller and Ball for Charlotte.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Zion is healthy, we\u2019ve got a shot,\u201d Borrego said.<\/p>\n
The Hornets have had multiple game-time adjustments for home outings the past couple of weeks because of wintry storms striking the area, including the starting time for Saturday\u2019s game being moved up three hours. They\u2019ve managed to cope with the adjustments that come with those.<\/p>\n
The Pelicans hold a 5-19 road record, though two of their victories have come in their last four road games.<\/p>\n
The game on Monday will be the first of six home games out of 11 February assignments for Charlotte, which has moved up the NBA standings and stands just 1 1\/2 games behind the Atlanta Hawks for the final Eastern Conference play-in position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Charlotte Hornets will try to add to their hottest stretch in a decade when the New Orleans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3796],"tags":[7,6,478,470,4073,4072,675],"class_list":{"0":"post-575811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-orleans-pelicans","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-new-orleans","11":"tag-new-orleans-pelicans","12":"tag-neworleans","13":"tag-neworleanspelicans","14":"tag-pelicans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115997395837577788","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}