Legendary former coach and current Miami Heat executive Pat Riley famously described a team’s early development as “the innocent climb.”
For the Charlotte Hornets, it’s been more like a high-speed elevator back to competitive basketball.
And while they finished only 44-38, the Hornets’ 29-12 surge over the back half of the NBA season tied for the fifth-best record over that span and took them from perpetual basement dwellers to sudden relevance at a dizzying pace.
Meanwhile, back out in Miami, the temperature is rising. Despite boasting a relatively talented roster, the Heat find themselves in the play-in for a fourth straight season.
Now, the quickly ascending Hornets are set to meet the slowly fading Heat in the Eastern Conference’s 9-10 game for the right to hoop another day. Here’s everything to know about the contrasting do-or-die matchup.
Charlotte Hornets (9) vs. Miami Heat (10) @ 7:30 p.m. ET / 4:30 p.m. PT
Season Series: Heat lead 3-1
Oct. 28: Heat 144, Hornets 117
Nov. 7: Heat 126, Hornets 108
March 6: Heat 128, Hornets 120
March 17: Hornets 136, Heat 106
The Hornets play a truly exhilarating brand of basketball.
Watching the league’s third-youngest team scale the standings via exceptional shot-making, audacious no-look passes and acrobatic at-rim finishes, all set to the soundtrack of Eric Collins’ 11/10 energy, has been nothing short of electric.
Charlotte hoisted over 43 triples per game, second-most in the NBA, and hit them at a third-ranked 37.8 per cent clip. Having LaMelo Ball jacking up an average of 5.6 pull-up threes per night — many of them off one leg — only makes this even more impressive. (He attempted more pull-up triples per game than the Toronto Raptors did as a team.)
And even though Ball chucked over 10 total triples per game, he still wasn’t able to beat rookie teammate Kon Knueppel‘s league-leading 273 threes on the season, instead finishing second with 272.
Knueppel shot the leather off the ball, becoming the first-ever rookie to lead the league in three-point makes. The duo are the second pair of teammates to finish top two after Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson did so four times between 2013 and 2017. Splash Bros 2.0?
More, Charlotte’s seemingly reckless shot-hurling and turnover-prone passing tendencies were steadied by outstanding rebounding. Their burgeoning, young centre rotation, including another rookie, Ryan Kalkbrenner, held down the glass with aplomb. The Hornets ranked second in both offensive and defensive rebounding percentage.
And once they were on the upswing, Charlotte pounced at the trade deadline. They already had plenty of capable drivers, but added one of the best available in Coby White anyway.
The Hornets beat several contenders over the second half, including the Denver Nuggets, San Antonio Spurs, Boston Celtics and New York Knicks. And while the Heat won the season series, the Hornets seem primed to seize the spotlight.
Bam Adebayo’s ludicrous 83-point game aside, it feels like there’s been a shift in “Heat Culture.”
Perhaps the team most famous for making noise out of the play-in with its run to the 2023 NBA Finals as the seventh seed, Miami has stagnated both in its results in the standings and its process.
Even with markedly plus defenders in former Defensive Player of the Year Adebayo, the team’s stock (steal+block) leader Andrew Wiggins and Davion “Off-Night” Mitchell, the Heat still came in with a middling 14th-ranked defensive unit.
Miami has played more zone than any other team in the NBA this season, a strategy they may have to deviate from against the hot-shooting Hornets.
Alternatively, one strength the Heat could lean into is running the floor for easy buckets. Miami led the league in transition frequency and ranked second in fast break points per game. And Charlotte was below-average at limiting opponents’ transition attempts, per Cleaning the Glass.
Last season, both the Heat and Dallas Mavericks made play-in history as the first teams to win consecutive road games and jump from a 10th-place finish in the conference to the eighth playoff seed.
This time around, that uphill battle feels even steeper. If Miami is going to make it out, they’ll need to find a way to recapture the edge that once adorned the floorboards of the Kaseya Center and defined South Beach basketball.
Ball’s artistry in initiating plays and putting defences into rotation helps the Hornets achieve the bulk of their quality three-point looks.
If Mitchell is able to follow through on his reputation as a lockdown defender and keep Ball under wraps, it could go a long way in limiting Charlotte’s fifth-ranked offence.
Of course, three-point variance will also be a big factor in this contest. With both teams chock full of shooting talent (Norman Powell and Tyler Herro are no slouches), a heater from downtown could swing the final result.