{"id":10456,"date":"2025-07-21T08:45:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T08:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/10456\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T08:45:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T08:45:09","slug":"hornets-hold-off-kings-to-win-first-nba-summer-league-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/10456\/","title":{"rendered":"Hornets hold off Kings to win first NBA summer league title"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAS VEGAS — Kon Knueppel<\/a>, the fourth pick in this year’s NBA draft, scored 21 points, and Charlotte held off a Sacramento rally to beat the Kings<\/a> 83-78 on Sunday for the Hornets<\/a>‘ first summer league title.<\/p>\n

Ryan Kalkbrenner<\/a> added 15 points, and three other players each scored 11 for the Hornets, who ended their summer league run with a 6-0 record.<\/p>\n

Isaac Jones<\/a> registered 24 points and 11 rebounds for Sacramento (5-1), and Devin Carter<\/a> put up 13 points. Nique Clifford<\/a>, drafted 24th, finished with 10 points and eight rebounds. He entered the game averaging 16.2 points and 6.2 rebounds.<\/p>\n

The Kings lost for the first time in three trips to the final. They won summer league titles in 2014 and 2021.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

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Knueppel continued his hot play after scoring five points in his opener. He averaged 18.3 points over his final four games and was named the championship game MVP. His 3-pointer with 31.1 seconds left in the final gave the Hornets a four-point lead.<\/p>\n

“Like I said before, if you’re going to come here, you should win,” Knueppel said. “So, that’s what we did.”<\/p>\n

The Hornets dominated early, leading by 36-18 in the second quarter. The Kings came back, and Jones twice cut the deficit to a point late, on a follow with 1:17 left and a 3-pointer with 20.3 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n

But the Hornets closed out the game at the free throw line, with three players making 5 of 6 foul shots.<\/p>\n

“It’s a championship game,” said Chris Jent, Charlotte’s summer league coach. “That’s what everybody wants to see anyway, so it works out well. In order to win a championship, you’ve got to play through adversity.”<\/p>\n

Hornets center James Banks III<\/a> was ejected with 3:47 left in the third quarter after picking up a flagrant foul 2 for an elbow to Sacramento center Dylan Cardwell<\/a>‘s face. Cardwell went down hard and remained on the floor during most of the video review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS — Kon Knueppel, the fourth pick in this year’s NBA draft, scored 21 points, and Charlotte…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-10456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}