By Sam Perley, hornets.com
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Result In undoubtedly the most dramatic game of the season so far, the Hornets were able to rally from a double-digit fourth-quarter deficit to squeak out a 95-93 victory over the New York Knicks on Wednesday, Nov. 11 in Charlotte. A back-and-forth battle the entire night, the Hornets’ Cody Zeller redeemed himself after missing two critical free throws the prior possession by hitting the go-ahead, game-winning layup with less than a second to go as Charlotte notched its fourth win in five games. Nicolas Batum had a big night for the Hornets, tallying a season-high 24 points while Carmelo Anthony finished with 29 points in the New York loss.
Turning Points For a while, it looked another bad third quarter might doom the Hornets for the second time in three games after Charlotte fell behind, 79-69, entering the fourth. Fortunately, Charlotte was able to regroup and responded by going on a quick 13-3 run to tie the game at 82 with just over eight minutes remaining. From that point, the game was neck-and-neck the rest of the way, eventually coming down to the wire all tied at 93-93 with seconds remaining. After forcing a Knicks’ shot-clock violation, Spencer Hawes found Cody Zeller underneath the New York basket for the go-ahead layup with just 0.6 seconds remaining in the game. New York responded by inbounding to rookie Kristaps Porzingis who hit a fade-away three-pointer at the buzzer, which was initially ruled good on the floor. Upon replay review, the basket was waved off as the clock had expired with the ball still in Porzingis’ hands allowing Charlotte to escape with the two-point victory.
Inside the Box Score Nicolas Batum finished with a season-high 24 points and a team-high-tying five rebounds… Jeremy Lin posted another big outing off the Charlotte bench, tallying 17 points on 7-of-11 shooting, three assists and three steals… Jeremy Lamb tacked on 14 points on 6-of-10 shooting along with four rebounds… Cody Zeller finished with 12 points for his third double-digit scoring performance in the last four games. Zeller also tied a career high by hitting 8-of-15 free-throw attempts… Spencer Hawes chipped in four rebounds along with a season-high and team-high five assists… New York’s Carmelo Anthony led all scorers with 29 points… Kristaps Porzingis tallied 10 points and also pulled down a game-high and career-high 15 rebounds. Porzingis has now recorded a double-double in three of his last four games for the Knicks…. Jose Calderon finished with 13 points and a team-high-tying five assists… Aaron Afflalo scored 12 points on 6-of-13 shooting from the field in his first game of the season… New York dominated Charlotte on the boards, 52-33… The Hornets turned the ball over a season-low five times while the Knicks coughed it up 16 times… Charlotte shot 17-of-28 from the free-throw line (60.7 percent) while New York connected on just 5-of-7 attempts (71.4 percent).
Hornets Player of the Game Nicolas Batum put together his best performance as a Hornet as he finished with a season-high 24 points on 10-of-18 shooting along with five rebounds for Charlotte in the win. This 24-point performance would have also been Batum’s second-highest scoring total of the entire 2014-15 NBA season.
Knicks Player of the Game Carmelo Anthony had another dominant outing as he tallied 29 points on 12-of-25 shooting, six rebounds and four assists for the Knicks in the loss. Anthony has now scored 24-or-more points in three-consecutive games for New York.
Game Notes Charlotte has now won four-consecutive games against the Knicks… the Hornets evened their record at 4-4 and are .500 for the first time since Nov. 7, 2014… Charlotte was also victorious in both games of a back-to-back for the first time since Mar. 3-4, 2015.
Next Up The Hornets hit the road again to take on the Bulls at 8 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 13 in Chicago. The game can be seen on FOX Sports Southeast or heard on WFNZ or on the official Charlotte Hornets mobile app.
