What: Charlotte Hornets (37-34) (17-17 home) vs Sacramento Kings (19-53) (6-28 away)<\/p>\n
When: 7:00pm Eastern<\/p>\n
Where: Spectrum Center; Charlotte, NC<\/p>\n
How to watch: FanDuel Sports Network, NBA League Pass<\/p>\n
Outfitting: Hornets\u2013Association (white), Kings\u2013City (purple)<\/p>\n
Game Lines: Hornets -17.5, Hornets money line -1350, O\/U 229.5<\/p>\n
Injuries:
Hornets: Kon Knueppel-probable (back), Tidjane Sala\u00fcn-out (calf)<\/p>\n
Kings: Daeqwon Plowden-probable (foot), Precious Achiuwa-questionable (back), Killian Hayes-questionable (foot), Domantas Sabonis-out (knee), Zach LaVine-out (finger), De\u2019Andre Hunter-out (eye), Keegan Murray-out (ankle), Russell Westbrook-out (foot), Nique Clifford-out (foot), Drew Eubanks-out (thumb)<\/p>\n
The Hornets look to make it four wins in a row after three straight blowouts over the Heat, Magic, and Grizzlies. The Kings have been feisty, but there\u2019s no reason for this not to go the way of the Hornets\u2019 previous three. <\/p>\n
Sacramento has seemingly had enough of their own feistiness.They had been careening towards the bottom of the NBA standings and the top lottery odds, but they suddenly started winning some games and have since been out-tanked by the Pacers, Wizards, and Nets. They actually just beat the Nets in a tank showdown. They\u2019re 5-3 in their last eight in large part because they\u2019ve played a lof of other tanking teams and won literally every single one of those games. That is not how you tank, Sacramento. <\/p>\n
After their rather narrow loss to the Hornets in which DeMar DeRozan dropped 39 points, the veteran led the Kings to a win over the Clippers with 27 points then a win over the Jazz with 41 points and 11 assists. After that, he\u2019s seemingly gotten a directive to chill the heck out. He played just 17 minutes against the Spurs and attempted four shots. Over the three games since that performance against Utah, he\u2019s averaged 8.3 points per game while attempting seven shots per game. After watching him nearly carry an otherwise awful Kings team to a win over the Hornets a couple of weeks ago, we can hope that he\u2019s going to continue to play with the dial turned way back tonight. <\/p>\n
After DeRozan, the most dangerous King is probably rookie second round pick Maxime Raynaud. He\u2019s flown under the radar a bit because he\u2019s a second round pick on a terrible team, but he\u2019s had a monster back of the season. Since the all star break, he\u2019s averaging 17.9 points, 9.1 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per game. He\u2019s shooting over 60% from the field and can step out and knock down the occasional three. He was a no show against Charlotte in the first meeting, but he comes into this one hot, averaging 28 points per game over his last three. <\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s Malik Monk. He didn\u2019t play last time for reasons unknown, but I think he\u2019ll suit up tonight. He led the Kings to a win in their most recent game with 32 points off the bench. He\u2019s been all over the place all season, both in terms of production and in minutes played. He\u2019s had many games where he\u2019s played few to no minutes, and others where he\u2019s gotten 30+. Some games he\u2019s been invisible, others he drops 30 points. He\u2019ll surely want to do well against his old team, which could get dangerous if he starts feeling himself.<\/p>\n
The Kings have a few other role players that could pose some problems here and there, but it goes without saying that the Hornets have a massive talent advantage from top to bottom. The Kings can\u2019t score from the outside, so if the Hornets are able to limit DeRozan and protect the rim like they typically do, it\u2019s going to be very hard for the Kings to keep pace. <\/p>\n
Like this:<\/p>\n
Like Loading…<\/p>\n