Charlotte Hornets lose to Sacramento Kings, 109-106

Charlotte Hornets lost to Sacramento Kings 109 to 106 Saturday. It’s the Hornets fourth straight lost and the Kings third win in their last four games. Cody Zeller missed his third straight game due to bruised quadriceps, Hornets are 1-10 when Cody Zeller doesn’t play. Anthony Tolliver and Willie Cauley-Stein both had big first half’s off the bench for the Kings to help give the Kings a 52-44 lead at halftime. Coach Clifford picked up his eighth technical foul in the second quarter after arguing with the refs over a charge called. The game got interesting with less than with a minute to go when DeMarcus Cousins scored a go-ahead basket with 14 seconds left on a driving layup from the right side of the lane. Hornets had a chance to take the lead in the closing seconds of the game when Kemba Walker passed it to a wide-open Frank Kaminsky at the top of the key, but he airballed with one seconds remaining. Cousins grabbed the rebound and was fouled and made one free-throw to help secure the win for the Kings.

            The MVP for this game for the Hornets would be Kemba Walker who scored 26 points and had 7 assists. It’s his 34^th game where he scored at least 20 points this seasons. Kemba also moved into third place in franchise history in field goals made (2,586), passing Gerald Wallace. He just behind the greats Dell Curry and Larry Johnson. The leading scorers for the Hornets were Nicolas Batum with 19 points 7 rebounds 7 assists, Marvin Williams with 14 points and Spencer Hawes with 12 points 7 rebounds. The Kings outscored Hornets 48-38 in the paint while Cousins grabbed 7 of the Kings 8 offensive rebounds. The Hornets had 25 personal fouls in this game, which is a lot of fouls for the Hornets, who usually doesn’t foul that much. The Hornets are paying Nic Batum $120 million to make plays, but over the last eight games he has turn the ball over 31 times, including 4 games with at least 5 turnovers. Batum has always had trouble not turning the ball over but that’s terrible and needs to stop trying to make the fancy play and just make the play that gets the Hornets points, not the turnover. The Kings leading scorers were DeMarcus Cousins with 35 points 18 rebounds, Darren Collison with 17 points, Anthony Tolliver with 14 points 7 rebounds and Willie Cauley-Stein with 13 points. Charlotte Hornets (23-25) head west for a three-game road trip starting Tuesday at Portland.