{"id":12111,"date":"2025-07-21T04:44:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T04:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/12111\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T04:44:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T04:44:08","slug":"hornets-hold-off-kings-to-win-first-nba-summer-league-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/12111\/","title":{"rendered":"Hornets hold off Kings to win first NBA Summer League title"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jul 21, 2025, 12:35 AM ET<\/p>\n

LAS VEGAS — Kon Knueppel<\/a>, the fourth pick in this year’s 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 NBA 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> had 24 points and 11 rebounds for Sacramento (5-1), and Devin Carter<\/a> scored 13. Nique Clifford<\/a>, drafted 24th, finished with 10 points and 8 rebounds. He entered the game averaging averaging 16.2 points and 6.2 rebounds.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

1 Related<\/p>\n

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

Knueppel continued his hot play after scoring five points in his opener. He averaged 18.3 points over his final four games.<\/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 — 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, three players making 5-of-6.<\/p>\n

Hornets center James Banks III was ejected with 3:47 left in the third quarter after picking up a flagrant-two foul 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":"Jul 21, 2025, 12:35 AM ET LAS VEGAS — Kon Knueppel, the fourth pick in this year’s draft,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-12111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}