The Charlotte Hornets were able to close their four-game road trip with a huge 118-108 win over Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies.
The Hornets used a great scoring effort by Kelly Oubre Jr., who scored 37 points coming off the bench, and “two-way production” in the matchup to prevail over a tough opponent.
Head coach James Borrego praised his team for the resiliency and poise the Hornets showed during important parts of the game Wednesday night.
“We continued to stay with it, the resilience the group showed to bounce back after losing the lead. We gonna need that, obviously we got to continue bounce back, bad loss, bad quarter, keep fighting,” Borrego said after the game.
“I think we’re moving in the right direction. I think both of LA games was part of that, I liked their effort in the Laker’ game, we show the same resiliency tonight. We are getting there, but we still got a long ways to go.”
The Hornets snapped a five-game losing streak, with three of them coming on the road. Charlotte had the chance to win in the previous games, but they weren’t able to close out the contests properly.
“Defensively we continued to battle, battling at the board they are a big, long and physical team. I liked our defensive effort tonight, the communication was there. It was a two-way production, offensively and defensively, to get this done.
More than anything in the fourth quarter it was our poise, our ability to stay together, keep fighting and that’s what it takes to win in the league. Proud of the way we closed-out tonight,” Borrego said.
Kelly Oubre Jr. big night
Oubre was a huge part of the Hornets’ road success on Wednesday. He matched his career high with seven 3-pointers on nine attempts and broke the franchise record for points off the bench.
“Obviously, he played well, shot the ball extremely well, played with great confidence. He was huge for us off the bench. When our bench playing with that type of efficiency, we’re a different team.
I think Gordon got us off to a great start, his aggression early in the first quarter was big for us, Kelly came in and continue that momentum off the bench.
We’re gonna need that spark off the bench. I believe every win we had someone off the bench having a big game whether that’s Ish, Cody, Kelly,” the experienced head coach concluded.
The Hornets will return back in Charlotte to face the New York Knicks Friday, and they’re hoping to maintain their momentum going forward, especially in the defensive end, as Charlotte ranked as one of the worst team in that category. Oubre believes his team will need to stay locked in for 48 minutes in every game.
“The goal was to treat the game as a street fight. We came here with that mentality of 48 minutes of a dog fight and we stayed locked in, and we came up victorious. We need to approach every game like this, stay locked in for 48 minutes.
I’m excited to get home to mu house, to my bed. We need to carry this momentum from this game to the next game and the games after that. We need to continue to get better, we have a lot of youth in the team, so we’re getting better every day, anyway”.
