The Charlotte Hornets will need all of the ingredients that were on display for their most recent victory when they take on the visiting Toronto Raptors on Saturday night.
And that might not even be enough to deal with one of the NBA’s hottest teams. But it should be a good starting point.
“Competitiveness and togetherness, that is what we preach every day,” Hornets coach Charles Lee said. “An opportunity to get better versus a really good Raptors team that’s on a great streak. We feel like we let one get away when we were up in Toronto, so it’s a really good opportunity for us to try to get some get-back.”
The Raptors are on a nine-game winning streak, with their most recent victory 97-95 over Indiana on Wednesday night. They wrapped up a 4-0 homestand on Brandon Ingram’s winning shot with 0.6 seconds left.
“That’s why he’s getting paid the money he’s getting paid,” Raptors coach Darko Rajakovic said of Ingram, who signed a three-year, $120 million extension in February.
Ingram, averaging a team-best 21.8 points per game, is shooting 31.4% from 3-point range this season. His 13-for-31 mark in the last six games represents a strong uptick.
The Hornets, meanwhile, snapped a seven-game losing streak with Friday night’s 123-116 victory against the visiting Chicago Bulls. That outcome was accompanied by various highlights for the Hornets. Perhaps most telling to Lee was an elevated effort from point guard LaMelo Ball.
“He gets on the floor for the loose ball,” Lee said. “That’s inspiring to your whole team. It becomes contagious. It’s a spirit-lifter and booster.”
That has been part of the emphasis regarding Ball, whose injury-interrupted season has involved numerous uneven stretches. He has gone four consecutive games without reaching the 20-point mark.
“There are still other ways to positively impact the game,” Lee said.
Miles Bridges is averaging a team-best 21.7 points per game for the Hornets.
While one victory is far from a remedy for all that ails them, it was a necessary first step.
“We have goals of competing every night,” Lee said. “There’s that internal motivation and internal drive for us to keep getting better. We have to back it up game after game, day after day.”
Lee said the Hornets have spent large amounts of time discussing transition defense, and it’s starting to pay off.
“It still needs a little bit of work,” he said. “But there were moments of communication, more urgency, recognition of tendencies.”
Toronto has been on a roll, and much of that is owed to maintaining the right mindset, Rajakovic said.
“It’s just a mentality of being aggressive,” he said. “That process never ends. It’s always evolving. It’s always changing. It’s always all of us learning.”
Toronto beat the Hornets 110-108 on Nov. 17 behind Ingram’s 27 points. He has been the Raptors’ leading scorer in three of five games since then. Team assists leader Immanuel Quickley also has been the Raptors’ top perimeter threat by connecting on an average of 2.4 shots from 3-point range per game.
Four of Charlotte’s five victories this season have come at home.
