Someone had to be the Magic’s first win.
Gordon Hayward scored 18 points but it wasn’t nearly enough as a frigid Charlotte Hornets offense lost a blowout to the previously winless Orlando Magic, 113-93.
Hayward opened the scoring with a corner 3-pointer. It was a little bit of a sluggish start for the Hornets offense otherwise, but they did good job of funneling the ball to the Magic’s poor shooters. It ended up being a very low scoring first quarter without much event. The Hornets went into quarter number two down 22-19.
The second quarter was more of the same. The Hornets scored just eight points in the first half of the period as every Hornet except for Hayward and Nick Richards struggled to put the ball in the hole. At one point after the midway point of the quarter, the Hornets had 10 made shots and 10 turnovers for the game. The Hornets struggled to generate good looks on offense and settled for a lot of high difficulty looks. They made only three shots in the entire quarter and didn’t score a point for the final 3:59 of the half. The Magic broke open a big lead and went into the half up 51-30.
The halftime break didn’t do anything to help the Hornets, and the Hornets hit a low point when Kelly Oubre flubbed an almost uncontested layup (which made him 2-of-13 for the game) that the Magic rebounded and scored almost immediately at the other end. Steve Clifford took a timeout to try to get anything to work, but there was nothing that could be done to change the direction of the game. The Hornets ended the third quarter with only 53 points on the scoreboard and a 29 point deficit.
The fourth quarter was meaningless, so of course the Hornets started hitting their shots. James Bouknight hit a trio if three balls and Mark Williams got some good run in. The Hornets outscored the Magic in fourth quarter garbage time to make the score line slightly more respectable, but the result of this game was never in doubt.
Not much you can do with this game besides burn the tape and move on to the next game. No player really had a standout performance and there wasn’t really any silver lining to take away from this game. Just move on and focus on the Golden State Warriors, who will meet the Hornets in Charlotte on Saturday night.