With the Detroit Pistons winning to end their losing streak at 28 games on Saturday night, the Charlotte Hornets hold the NBA’s mantle of longest current stretch of futility with 10 straight losses.
Avoiding an 11th loss in a row will be a tough challenge when the Hornets visit the reigning champion Denver Nuggets on Monday night.
Playing in Denver is tough enough but facing a rested Nuggets team coming off a disappointing home loss Friday night makes it more difficult.
This is the teams’ second and final matchup this season, with the Hornets dropping the first at home, 102-95 on Dec. 23. They led by six at halftime but went 17 straight possessions without a field goal to open the third quarter and were outscored 30-9 on their way to a seventh straight defeat.
It hasn’t gotten better since. Charlotte is halfway through a six-game road trip that started with a loss at the Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday. The Hornets have lost the first three games of the trip by an average of 14.7 points and are coming off a 133-119 setback at Phoenix on Saturday night.
Charlotte has been in many of the games but, like against the Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday night, made costly mistakes in the second half.
“If we’d just guard without fouling, I think we’d be good,” said rookie Brandon Miller, who scored 17 points against the Lakers. “Being in the right places, I think that was the important part tonight. I feel like I messed up on a few possessions.”
The Nuggets will likely have forward Aaron Gordon after he recovered from lacerations to his hands and face stemming from dog bites on Christmas. Peyton Watson has played well in two starts but Gordon was missed in a 26-point loss to Oklahoma City on Friday night.
Gordon, who returned to practice Sunday, missed the last two games after his Rottweiler bit him, he told the Denver Post on Sunday. The team has been supportive and willing to give him as much time as necessary before coming back.
“Going through something like that is not something you come back from easily,” coach Michael Malone said after Gordon suffered the injuries. “That’s something where you have to heal from the physical, but you also have to heal from the mental and what you just kind of went through.”
Friday night’s loss snapped a six-game winning streak for Denver and was the second time in two weeks it lost to the Thunder at home. However, there isn’t any panic for the Nuggets, just like there wasn’t when Nikola Jokic seemed to lose his shooting touch for a couple of games.
He has bounced back impressively, hitting all 11 field goals in a win over Memphis on Thursday night and was 9-for-10 from the field in the loss to Oklahoma City. At one point he had made 16 straight shots going back to his last attempt against Golden State on Christmas. He has also hit all 28 of his free throws over the last five games.
–Field Level Media