The Charlotte Hornets’ Season Is Already Over
By: Gerald Washington
Tags: NBA, Basketball, Charlotte Hornets, Cleveland Cavaliers

That was a nice letdown.

Photo by Izuddin Helmi Adnan on Unsplash

I may be overreacting to last night’s 121 to 114 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers (their team has gotten better), but it’s a good overreaction. What should have been an easy slide to victory turned into a horror show for those that are Hornets fans.

If you’re a Cavaliers fan, you must be doing various dance moves on your living room floor after tonight’s victory, and honestly, I wouldn’t blame you. Your team ice skated all around us. I’m still in disbelief with the NBA team I saw out of the floor in the Hornets.

The NBA season has returned! As a huge fan since 2004, I was glad to get some good entertainment back considering how rough of a year it’s been on us all with Covid-19 and people losing loved ones close to them.

So the NBA was one of the few ways (besides writing) that I escape from cold-hearted reality. The Hornets-Cavaliers game is about to start on my smart TV. I’m excited expecting a Hornets win with the young core that they have on their team with Gordon Hayward.

Terry Rozier, Devonte Graham, Miles Bridges, PJ Washington, Malik Monk, The Martin Brothers, and LaMelo Ball. With this group, what could go wrong? A lot apparently.

From the start, the Hornets looked sluggish and (besides Hayward and Rozier ) had trouble getting their shots to go in the basket. Meanwhile, Cavaliers’ guard Collin Sexton goes Stephen Curry on the Hornets with his guard partner Darius Garland joining in on the fun.

To make things worse, new Cavaliers Andre Drummond and Javale McGee are having their way inside the paint. Poor Cody Zeller, it was a rough game for it, to make matters worse, he gets injured later on in the game. Everything the Cavaliers were throwing up was going in while the Hornets were struggling to get a good flow going on offense.

When the second quarter can, the game was completely lost for the Hornets. Their defense couldn’t stop the Cavaliers. Cleveland had the momentum early in the second quarter, this is when the excitement I had for this game completely died inside me.

I decide to turn the game on and look up the Milwaukee Bucks-Boston Celtics game to calm my blood pressure. I see both team ball and it makes me weep inside because I desperately want the Charlotte Hornets to be as good as them so bad! So I’m watching the Bucks-Celtics game as a part of me is hoping the Hornets finally got their act together.

15 minutes passed by. ‘’Okay, Let me see what the score is to that Hornets-Cavaliers game is now. WHAT? 61 to 44! Really? How can this be? Cleveland doesn’t even have Kevin Love playing or the ghost of Lebron and Kyrie in the shadows’’. The depression is growing inside of thee. I wait a couple of minutes to check on the score again.

The game is in the third quarter. The Hornets are only behind by 10 points! Not bad. The score is 85 to 75. Maybe they have a shot to right the ship. I don’t check on the game until late in the quarter hoping that the Hornets got the lead. Sadly, they were still behind with the score being 118–111 with barely any time left in the fourth quarter.

The Hornets would end up losing their first NBA game against a Cavaliers team who clearly looked like the better-prepared team. Terry Rozier had a monster game with 42 points. Gordon Hayward also had a good game with 28 points. The rest of the team had rough outings. Hopefully, they can get into a groove when they play against OKC. Hopefully.

This was a tough loss to take. Credit to the Cavaliers team. They brought it to the Hornets.