National Basketball Association

Charlotte Hornets Travel to Brooklyn to Take on the Nets

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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The Charlotte Hornets look to continue their strong start to the season as they travel on the road to take on the Brooklyn Nets.

Coming off of a 109-93 win over the 76ers, the Charlotte Hornets (3-1) are looking to begin a winning streak in Brooklyn against the Nets (2-3). This was going to be a reunion between the Hornets and Jeremy Lin. However, Lin is set to miss the next two weeks with a hamstring injury.

The Nets have been better than most people thought they would be with wins over the Pacers and Pistons. They have a collection of really good young scorers like Sean Kilpatrick and Bojan Bogdanovic. The Nets also have some proven veterans like Brook Lopez and Trevor Booker. It’ll be a tough task for the Hornets as every road game in the Association is.

Keys to the Game

Brooklyn has been a high scoring team so far as they’re 13th in the NBA in PPG as a team. The Hornets will have to contend with two great one-on-one scorers mentioned above. The Hornets defense has been very good allowing only 96 PPG which is 5th in the NBA. They will need to limit the three-point shooting as some teams have been successful from the outside against Steve Clifford’s team.

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The resilience that the Hornets have shown has been excellent to start the season. They’ve mounted comebacks against the Heat and the Sixers so far this season. Both of those comebacks were from down double digits. The Hornets have been slow coming out of the game averaging 22 PPG on 34.4% shooting in the first quarter this season. A faster start from the Hornets will help their cause and give them a better outcome.

Nic Batum and Kemba Walker need to consistently play well together like they did against the Sixers. The Nets seem like a great matchup for this to happen so look for them both to try to find a rhythm. The Hornets will once again be without Roy Hibbert and Jeremy Lamb with knee and hamstring injuries respectively. For the Nets, Randy Foye could play after sitting out with a hamstring injury. As mentioned above, Jeremy Lin’s hamstring injury will hold him out of tonight’s game.

Prediction

The Brooklyn Nets have played well against some of the very talented teams in the Eastern Conference. However, the Nets do have the tendency to give up a lot of points on most nights against good teams. The Hornets are a good team and need to continue to prove that they are against inferior competition.

Kemba Walker and Nic Batum should be able to play well together and contributions from the bench and others will help too. It should be an excellent game this evening and the Hornets should be ready to play.

Hornets 105, Nets 97

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