So yeah, that ending sucked.

If the Hornets played a game similar to Tuesday night and lost, yeah, you’d be fine with the result. To effectively play another non-competitive game in another play-in game and continuing a narrative of not seeing the playoffs is just…..disappointing.

Which is fine for me, because as I’ve said, there are no bad endings..only disappointing ones. Friday night in Orlando absolutely qualifies.

If you’ll note, there isn’t much analysis to tonight because there wasn’t much to really analyze. Orlando used the Detroit playbook to a T, beat up the Hornets and the Hornets allowed themselves to take themselves out of the game mentally. Every elite team has effectively taken them out the same exact way.

But I do have good news, the cure for being taken out physically is solved in the offseason. LaMelo is entering the offseason healthy for the first time in three years. Brandon Miller figures to have at least a little bit of his summer to add strength. Kon will get his first real chance to add to the repertoire.

At the end of the day, this team is the best it’s been in years at the most flexible point they’ve ever been. Two top 20 picks, at least three movable contracts (Bridges, Williams, Green) and a braintrust that has no problems doing what’s necessary to get better (see Williams, Mark).

The offseason starts tomorrow.

That game gave me hives.

Those who have been on this ride long enough know that I do my best to remove all emotion when it comes to covering this team. Mainly because that emotion has been used against me and has affected the trajectory of my career.

Tonight was different. When you watch the team melt down twice against play-in tournament zombies, see Coby White hit a top-3 shot in Hornets postseason history and LaMelo Ball fail and then IMMEDIATELY REDEEM HIMSELF to win the game. Demons were exercised, chains were broken and who knows, maybe dog and cats can live together in harmony.

Tonight was another inflection point in the “these aren’t the same soft ass Hornets” narrative changing. The jumper wasn’t working, they kept firing. All of the quotes about Hornets DNA ended up coming to life with the Charlotte Hornets earning their first play-in tournament win in franchise history.

Sometimes the good stuff is only delayed and not denied.

• The Foul: Let me just put it out there NOW. I do not care about the foul. Do I think it affected the outcome? Yes. But as a Hornets fan, do you understand how many times that kind of play typically happens to the Hornets? Hell, the reason LaMelo is even in that position is that he got pinballed into Bam by Fontecchio, which should’ve been a foul to begin with.
  

  

  SM Highlights@SMHighlights1

  Anyone who thinks this isn’t dirty by LaMelo is an idiot. This was obviously on purpose 🤦‍♂️

  3:12 AM · Apr 15, 2026 · 562 Views

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  1 Reply · 1 Repost · 53 Likes

  
  
  And oh yeah, if we’re going to discuss the hierarchy of missed calls, the refs not only missed the LaMelo foul on that play, but Bam’s foot was on the line before he kicked the ball out on a fast break, resulting in two points for the Heat.
  
  Let’s just admit that the refs were not their best and move on.

• The Shot: Coby White hit a top 3 Hornets shot of all time. Full stop. It’s Zo vs. the Celtics, it’s Courtney Lee in Game 5 vs. the Heat and then it’s Coby. In that order. But this is exactly why you go and get Coby White, for moments like that.
  

  

  SportsCenter@SportsCenter

  COBY WHITE SENDS IT TO OT TO KEEP CHARLOTTE ALIVE 🎯 (via @NBA)

  2:04 AM · Apr 15, 2026 · 246K Views

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  69 Replies · 652 Reposts · 4.78K Likes

  
  19, 5, and 3 on the night, and it only cost the Hornets Collin Sexton and two 2nd-round picks.

• The Block: Miles Bridges had his best game as a Charlotte Hornet at the right time. When Kon and Brandon were either ineffective or too scared, Miles stepped up. And when Davion Mitchell had a step on Coby White on the way to the rim, Miles Bridges wiped the shot.
  
  

  

  NBA@NBA

  THE HORNETS WIN 🚨 LAMELO GO-AHEAD BUCKET. BRIDGES BLOCK TO SEAL IT. CHARLOTTE WILL PLAY FOR THE EAST 8-SEED ON FRIDAY!

  2:28 AM · Apr 15, 2026 · 724K Views

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  Good luck trying to sleep after watching that. I won’t need that much help, thanks to the hives, I can take Benadryl. Talk Friday night.

FIN.

On Tuesday, the Charlotte Hornets will host a play-in tournament game for the first time.

If you solely cared about the most important news regarding the Hornets, that one sentence would do it. If you looked beneath the surface of the game required to secure home court, well….it’d tell a different story.

Sunday nights game looked like a team that was clearly gassed from going hard for 81 prior games against a squad looking to put some good tape out there for teams needing players in July. If this game was a month ago, there’d have been a Dispatch about another Hornets blowout of an overmatched team that would set another potential record. Instead, the Hornets needed three and a half quarters to rid themselves of the Westchester Knicks, with Jose Alverado and Miles McBride playing prominent roles.

That said, the Charlotte Hornets have a chance to make even more history. Winning their first play-in tournament game. Against a familiar foe that knows a few things about escaping the play-in, the Miami Heat. This season has been about shedding prior traumas and old habits, eliminating the Miami Heat would qualify as an exorcism of the highest order.

Okay, I’m done complaining. Here’s the real message: from this point forward, anything the Hornets accomplish is gravy. Not the jarred stuff that you get at family functions from your aunt who barely knows how to boil water. No, the real rich gravy that comes from a proper pan sauce and a roux. The good gravy.

The Hornets were not supposed to be here this year. In fact, it’s been said MULTIPLE times by multiple people in Spectrum Center that this season was an evaluation year. The goal of the season was to figure out who was staying and who was going. Well, they figured out that this roster has more pieces worth keeping than shipping off.

Should they happen to get the eight seed in the East? They’ll learn even more against a Detroit squad that clearly does not fear them. And a very talented front office will get a chance to gather even more data. Again, regardless of how this season ends, none of those endings are bad. Now get a dinner roll to sop up some of that good gravy.

• Kon Knueppel is your Three Point Champ, but it was close: Kon Knuppel is your league leader in made three-pointers in the NBA for the 2025-2026 season. He won this award by ONE made three over his teammate LaMelo Ball. And if we’re honest, it felt like this storyline derailed a ton of this game and made it the morass that it became. Credit to them for really wanting that particular point of notoriety, but I’m glad that storyline is behind both of them.
  
  As for what it means for Kon, leading the league in made threes is a BIG deal. However, if you’re a frequent reader, you know that I don’t believe the league voters will allow themselves to vote for Kon over Flagg. Simply for the legacy narrative. But I also think that with what Kon has meant to the franchise, him winning rookie of the year would be icing on the cake, rather than the entire cake itself.

• Coby White saved the Hornets, part 234532: If Coby White doesn’t have the 2nd and 3rd quarters that he did, the Hornets are likely going into Tuesday playing in Miami and on a three-game losing streak. He was the bench scoring and stabilized the Hornets offensively whenever things went astray. Thankfully, Mr. White has plenty of play-in experience as a Chicago Bull. He’ll be necessary if the Hornets plan on making it to Friday.

• Sion James has a little bit of Anthony Roberson to him (for now): For 3.5 quarters of that Knicks game, Sion James looked like a man without a place in the rotation come Tuesday. Then he hit two BIG threes to squash any rally from the Knicks. But it still doesn’t erase the fact that of all the folks who look particularly gassed, he might be the biggest one. Teams have effectively conceded the jumper to him and have shifted coverages elsewhere. And in post-season basketball, one consistent theme is that if you cannot score, there is likely no place for you on the court. Josh Green isn’t the stout defender that Sion in, however, you cannot leave Josh alone in the corners. It stands to reason exactly how much rope Sion has on Tuesday night, because if he’s not effective, he can’t be out there for long.

FIN

In a game that the Charlotte Hornets needed to win to secure an outright playoff spot, the offense came up short. Recently, that sentence could be uttered a lot. For the Hornets, it’s the second straight game that you could say this.

For three quarters against Boston, the Hornets went toe to toe with the Celtics. And when it came to closing time, the Hornets’ offense went cold. At least with Boston, fans had a built-in excuse; Coby White wasn’t in rotation. How could one (fairly) judge the Hornets without their bench plug in a game they needed to have?

I regret to inform you that the same exact thing happened Friday night against the Pistons, this time with Coby White. The Hornets scored a magical ten points in the 4th quarter. Total. The Pistons straight-up choked out the offense and highlighted all the issues with this team when it comes to taking the next step. LaMelo can keep you in games all by his lonesome. But if you cut everyone else off, it’s only a matter of time before LaMelo tires out from carrying 4 other dudes on his back.

Shoot, in the postgame, Grant Williams admitted that the Pistons punked them.

Hunter Bailey@Hunter_Bailey45

“They punked us,” Grant Williams said of the intensity matchup with the Pistons.

1:50 AM · Apr 11, 2026 · 661 Views

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1 Like

So, I think this is the point where we need to be honest about the potential outcomes for the rest of the season. Those outcomes are either losing painfully in the play-in tournament or praying for a gentleman’s sweep as the best outcome against the Pistons in the first round of the NBA playoffs.

Barring catastrophic injury, neither of these are “bad” outcomes. Sure, the season does feel fait accompli, but at the end of the day, this team is going to gather valuable data in this postseason to take into this summer armed with two 1st-round picks and three expiring contracts. The Hornets will be fine long-term, even if the end of the season is a bummer.

• Messed around and found myself on the All-NBA 3rd team - The LaMelo Ball story: Look, I’m not saying it’s a certainty. Maybe it’s not even a possibility. But if some of the known All-NBA teamers can’t get exemptions, you could do far worse than putting LaMelo in there. Hell, he’s had a DYNAMIC finishing kick to the season. He averaged 20 ppg with 6 assists in the month of March, and while the sample size is small, he’s averaging 26.7 points on 50/40/90. In a year where LaMelo is playing the second-most games he’s ever played, he’s been awesome.

• Are we sure Kon is okay?: On March 24th, the Hornets put Kon Knueppel on the injury report with a lower back strain. He was cleared to play and played in a game of little consequence against the Sacramento Kings. But ever since that game, I’ve been looking at him a little differently. He’s not the same guy, there’s been a bit more inconsistency. Some of that is clearly the rookie wall, some of that is clearly the team trying to take him away. But at the same time, it’s becoming more and more apparent that he’s not right. And the one thing anyone will tell you about a back injury is that it tends to flare up at all the wrong times. Credit to him for gutting through something that’s slowing him down

• Finally, a mea culpa: I need to apologize for ghosting on Dispatches for far too long. Some of the reasoning was that I got a side gig, some of it is because I’m trying to figure out what I want Dispatches to be going forward in a sustainable manner. Regardless, too many of y’all had rocked with the newsletter this season to just up and dip. So I vow that we’re going to finish the season, get through however many postseason games there are. Do some things in the offseason, and then, we’ll re-evaluate what this will look like heading into draft time.

FIN.

After this weekend, I’m beginning to wonder if there’s a defensive gameplan for these Hornets that can be replicated by playoff-caliber teams.

You’ve seen some form of it before, largely done by the Pistons. Now replicated by the Miami Heat and the latest team to use it, the Phoenix Suns. Teams are now beginning to chase the Hornets off the 3-point line, forcing them inside where shotblockers are available.

Now, you’re likely reading this and wondering why teams haven’t done this more often and why it’s just now being implemented. Or you’re screaming that teams have already tried this and failed, so why is it different now?

The difference is positional length. As it’s a little different when Rasheer Fleming, Ron Holland, Ausar Thompson or Royce O’Neal is running at you to chase you off the line, as opposed to a Collin Gillespie. Athletic guys are now getting parked out on the wings to disrupt the shooters. And it’s not as simple as using a relocation dribble. The ball has to move in that situation.

And eventually, as you see with this team, they start passing up really good shots to try to get the proverbial better shot that never comes. Or they turn the ball over trying to find that shot. It’s a defensive strategy that is INCREDIBLY hard to replicate and requires intentional drafting in order for it to work. Credit these teams for having the roster to throw a spanner in the works. And at some point, trust that these young Hornets will develop a counterpunch to this, even if it’s not until next year.

• We need to stop harping on LaMelo’s FG percentage, or his efficiency: If you look at LaMelo’s stat line from tonight, you’re going to see 22 points on 9 of 19 shooting and automatically assume he shot his team out of the game. Or that he needs to be more efficient with his shot diet, or whatever trendy term that quants guys are using.
  
  I just want people to start looking underneath the hood of these shooting performances. Like, if you run through the game footage, how many of the shots LaMelo took tonight were REALLY bad shots? Maybe two or three (there’s an especially egregious one towards the end of the first half that I cannot and will not defend.)
  
  Now, I’d ask you to watch and see how many of these shots came off stagnant offense where players weren’t moving. You’d probably see more than a few. But more importantly, I’d argue that his lack of a good FG% is irrelevant because he’s hit enough of those long bombs to teams HAVE TO guard him from that distance. And if he’s changing the geometry, everyone else ends up benefiting from the increased spacing and the drives that create the swing, swing swish shots that the Hornets have been known for.
  
  I say all that to say, LaMelo’s breaking a lot of eggs to create a beautiful omelette. It’s best to enjoy the meal, rather than complain about the amount of eggs used in the dish.

• My Weekly PSA to remind you that there are no bad outcomes, only disappointing ones: As the rest of the Southeastern teams can’t seem to lose, there appears an increasing likelihood that the Hornets will not be able to climb out of the 9 or 10 spot this season. This, obviously, would ultimately be a disappointing end to the season.
  
  But I’m going to continue to hammer home that as Hornets fans, we’ve suffered FAR worse disappointments. And if anything, this team has shown itself to be ahead of schedule with capable leadership in every facet for the first time since the Bob Bass years. Even if this team suffers ANOTHER Play-In loss. This team will have a shot at a top 4 pick this year and will have another within the top 20 of the last loaded draft for two years. Add that to a full offseason of improvement for everyone AND the memories of a killer January and February. The future is bright in Charlotte, even if you can’t see it yet.

FIN