How the Hornets are using this unexpected extra time to improve, correct late-game issues
Charlotte has been inconsistent in clutch games this season and it's something the Hornets are working on this week
Given they have such an unusual amount of down time in between games, something that rarely happens, Bismack Biyombo isn’t about to complain too much.
“I’m enjoying it,” the Hornets center said Tuesday. “It’s my All-Star break.”
Things kind of feel that way for Charlotte at the moment. Thanks to Wednesday’s home game against Washington getting postponed since the Wizards will not have the league-required minimum number of eight players available, the Hornets have an unexpectedly inordinate span of days off following a grueling stretch. They don’t play again until hosting Chicago on Friday.
Coming off a span of 10 games in 16 days, though, the Hornets could use a brief respite. Especially with the last two losses to Toronto, both of which came down to the game’s final possession.
So there is a silver lining or two in all of it. Besides giving the players ample time to rest some of their ailments, it provides the coaching staff with an opportunity to practice something they couldn’t previously due to the shortened training camp and because of their compressed schedule.
As in end-of-game situations.
“Yeah, that’s huge for us,” coach James Borrego said. “I think last year we won the most one-possession games and we worked on it a lot. We had more time last year. From early on we had our go-to stuff. We just haven’t focused on it a whole lot this year and there’s been other priorities that we’ve focused on. New personnel. New sets. Where’s the ball going? Obviously the addition of Gordon (Hayward) changes our fourth-quarter package. And I’ve got to figure him out, where he likes the ball, how to get him the ball. Obviously, Terry (Rozier) is a part of that, Tae (Graham) is a part of that and LaMelo (Ball) can be a part of that. So, I’m trying to figure that out as well.”
That’s why the Hornets also spent a good portion of Monday’s practice adding some things to their fourth-quarter package to better assist in their late-game execution and the expectation was to also do it a bit in Wednesday’s live scrimmage to replace their postponement with the Wizards.
In both defeats to the Raptors, the Hornets wound up losing by a one-possession margin. On each occasion, they had a chance to tie it in the final seconds, only to come up short. (Of course, in its two-minute report the next day, the NBA admitted Rozier should have gone to the free throw line with 2.4 seconds remaining after Stanley Johnson collided with him in Saturday’s defeat. But that did nothing to alter the team’s won-loss record).
Exactly half of the Hornets’ 14 games have taken place in the clutch and they are 3-4, according to NBA.com. Clutch is defined as a game in which the point differential is five points or fewer with less than five minutes remaining.
The Hornets are tied for 19th in the league along with New Orleans and Phoenix in clutch wins and no doubt it’s an area they need to improve if they want to keep from hovering around the .500-mark.
“To close games, look we have not closed together,” Borrego said. “We’re learning on the fly, right? We’re learning on the fly. But I think there’s some things that I found last year that really helped us. We were a very good clutch team — the last five minutes of a game team — because we knew what we were running, we knew what we were executing. And obviously you’ve got to make shots down the stretch. That goes without saying, but we want to make sure that our guys know what we are looking for in a situation. And this week’s going to allow us to become more efficient in those periods of time.”
Rozier welcomed the added focus on crunch time execution during these last two days.
“It’s definitely going to help,” he said. “We’ve got games that’s close. We’ve got to value every possession and we looked at the film from when we just played Toronto and I had two crazy turnovers back-to-back — a bad shot and a turnover. And just plays like that, we’ve just got to hold the ball, get the ball in the middle of the court in the fourth quarter and just make it happen. And we will. We’ve got a lot of good players that can do that — as in myself and a lot of guys on this roster. So we’ll just figure it out. And days like today, (Monday), it’s important that we can sit down together, and watch film and talk it over, and just keep growing.”
Defenses can overplay the team’s first option, and as Borrego also mentioned the Hornets have to work through their end-of-game options to settle on the best way to take advantage of having multiple playmakers. In two of their four clutch-time defeats, Rozier fired off the final potential game-tying shot. And PJ Washington wound up hoisting the 3-point attempt in the waning seconds in last Thursday’s three-point loss, a game Hayward didn’t play in while nursing a left hip strain.
Borrego said setting up who takes the final attempt all depends on a few factors.
“Going into a game, I have my different sets that I’m going to go to for each guy in a game and then it’s just gut feel, as the game’s going, just down the stretch,” he said. “It depends on matchup, how a guy’s rolling. And a lot of it is dictated by what I see in matchups down the stretch and then going to those strengths. But no matter what Gordon will be a part of those sets (and) obviously Terry and Tae are a big part of that as we saw last year.”
So for the Hornets, cashing in on this subtle but extremely valuable opportunity while also enjoying their pseudo break as Biyombo insinuated, is key. Barring another postponement due to COVID-19 issues, they aren’t scheduled to have more than two days off between games. And that only happens once in just under a month from now.
Friday tips off a span of three games in four days and is the first of nine in 15 days for the Hornets. Rest assured, they aren’t the slightest bit bothered by the opportunity to catch their collective breaths until then.
“Nah, but I think it just helps us,” Biyombo said. “No. 1, we’re taking care of our bodies. There’s a lot of condensed games. We’ve played, I think, six games in nine nights and I think we are going to do it again starting Friday or so. So it’s a lot of games in a condensed time and you’ve just got to take care of the body. Practices, I think it’s more about the details, focusing on details, game situations, learning about the mistake you’ve made, correct them, a lot of these little mistakes and focusing on road ahead became we are not just going to be playing one team.”
Guys are putting in the WORK and still exude that joy that JB talked about preseason. Looking forward to seeing how this next stretch plays out. We are seeing many reasons to believe it's going to be a good stretch.