The Indiana Pacers and Charlotte Hornets have something in common \u2014 they\u2019re both playing at perhaps their highest levels of the season.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s just that the Hornets will have much more at stake when the teams meet Friday night in Charlotte, N.C.<\/p>\n
The Hornets (41-36) have won seven of their last nine games and are trying to strengthen their grip on a spot in the NBA play-in tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to let our defense dictate our offense,\u201d Charlotte forward Miles Bridges said. \u201cAs long as we play defense, I feel we\u2019re going to be in good shape because everybody (on our team) can score the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pacers (18-58) have been eliminated from playoff contention but have won three of their last five games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like the way we\u2019re playing right now,\u201d coach Rick Carlisle said. \u201cWe\u2019re doing the things we need to do to be a good team right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Six Hornets scored in double figures in Thursday night\u2019s 127-107 home victory against the Phoenix Suns. Yet several players pointed to rookie center Ryan Kalkbrenner\u2019s four blocked shots as providing energy.<\/p>\n
Then there was rookie guard Kon Knueppel, who has drained 261 shots from 3-point range to set the franchise single-season record that had been held by now-assistant coach Kemba Walker.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring this time, you usually see rookies going down,\u201d Bridges said, \u201cbut our rookies are doing great.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also the veteran presence of guard Coby White, who has scored in double figures in 10 consecutive games off the Charlotte bench.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just try to go out there and help any way I can,\u201d White said.<\/p>\n
The Pacers are aiming for their second three-game winning streak of the season after defeating Miami on Sunday and Chicago on Wednesday. Those games \u2014 with final scores of 135-118 and 145-126, respectively \u2014 marked the two highest-scoring outputs in regulation this season for Indiana.<\/p>\n
The Pacers racked up 49 assists on 58 baskets Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ball has energy; it goes in the basket more,\u201d Carlisle said. \u201cI think we\u2019re shooting the ball well. We got a rhythm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ethan Thompson scored a career-high 24 points vs. the Bulls.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m happy for him,\u201d Carlisle said. \u201cHe has kept himself ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pascal Siakam has led Indiana in scoring in four of the last five games.<\/p>\n
Siakam (sore right knee) and Obi Toppin (sore right foot) have shown up on recent Indiana injury reports. T.J. McConnell (hamstring) and Andrew Nembhard (back) missed Wednesday\u2019s game. Nembhard led the Pacers in scoring with 20 points in February in the most recent meeting with Charlotte.<\/p>\n
Even with some questions about roster availability, the Pacers have found a groove.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can play without guys like that because we have guys that can make plays,\u201d Carlisle said. \u201cKobe Brown can make plays. (Ben Sheppard) can handle it. Ethan Thompson can handle it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pacers beat Charlotte 127-118 on Nov. 19 and 114-112 on Jan. 8, while the Hornets won a Feb. 26 matchup 133-109. Brandon Miller had 33 points for Charlotte in the latter game with 22 successful 3-point shots \u2014 twice as many 3s as the Pacers made that night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Indiana Pacers and Charlotte Hornets have something in common \u2014 they\u2019re both playing at perhaps their highest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3777],"tags":[7,684,473,3878,685,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-695855","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-charlotte-hornets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-charlotte","10":"tag-charlotte-hornets","11":"tag-charlottehornets","12":"tag-hornets","13":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116341062450250324","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695855","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=695855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}