Charlotte Hornets 98, Orlando Magic 113: Notes and Observations

The Charlotte Hornets didn't play very well against the Orlando Magic. That much is obvious when looking at the final score, but does this really mean all that much? Throughout a long 82 game season there's going to be a lot of strange games. Huge comebacks, buzzer beaters, choked games, and yes the occasional stinker performance. Last night falls into the stinker category.

Charlotte played pretty poor defense on the surface, but looking deeper into it you notice that Orlando made a season high 14 3-pointers, and shot 58 percent from deep. Perhaps even more shocking was the Magic's 55 percent shooting from the field. Orlando's a defensive minded team that isn't exactly well known for their shooting. This group shooting the lights out on anybody is a surprise let alone a usually solid defensive team like Charlotte.

It might sound lazy to pin the game as just an outlier loss in a long season, and to be honest it kind of is, but it's hard to explain what happened otherwise. The Hornets still shot 41 percent from 3-point range, and it's not like their defense was a saloon door of players getting to the rim with ease. Orlando just shot the lights out in areas that they usually don't make shots in. They were even 11-for-19 from midrange which is not an area that Orlando thrives in.

Could Charlotte have closed out better on shots, and maybe played with a little more energy to have made this a closer contest? Yeah probably, but this isn't a game worth losing sleep over . Now ff these kinds of performances become a trend then maybe it'll be worth looking back at this one and seeing where things went wrong, but lets wait until there's actual issues before we start worrying about effort.

Notes and Observations

P.J. Hairston had probably his best game of the season last night, but he really didn't play any different from usual. He was just making his shots for once. Hopefully this will be the start of him turning his shooting around, but his jumpshot is still not trustworthy until he's consistently shooting well.

Nicolas Batum left last night's game early due to being ill, and it was obvious that the Hornets took a dip on the perimeter without him. This also may have had something to do with Orlando shooting so well from midrange and deep.

Last night was the first game of Al Jefferson's supsension. Looks like Charlotte chose a good game to start on.

Frank Kaminsky only made one 3-pointer, but he was shooting from deep with confidence. Seeing him not afraid to take shots that he thinks he can make is a good thing. That said maybe he should get a little closer next time, because some of those attempts were from ridiculously deep out.

Kemba Walker shoot poorly last night. He also had nine assists. As always, I wish Walker would focus more on passing and choose his shots better, but he's gonna go out and score 31 points in a couple games to make me look stupid so why even complain at this point?