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'We were good. But we want to be great': Next challenge awaits road-weary Hornets

Roderick Boone, The Charlotte Observer on

Published in Basketball

Recalling how things went down in the previous meeting with the San Antonio Spurs and French phenom Victor Wembanyama two months ago, Charles Lee pointed to their successful game plan.

“I thought our guys did a good job with our coverage execution,” the Charlotte Hornets coach said, “and when we did switch, we had this low-man-wins mentality to not allow him to just walk you down to his spots and let him operate.”

The exact opposite scenario happened Saturday afternoon.

With no one able to contain Wembanyama — not even fellow countryman Moussa Diabate, who was plagued by early foul trouble — the Hornets lost to San Antonio 115-102 at Frost Bank Center.

Yielding 32 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists to Wembanyama was how the Hornets (34-34) capped off their four-game, eight-day trip west of the Mississippi River, settling for a split. It was a trek filled with plenty of emotional swings and Lee believes they’ll benefit from the experience during this run to a potential playoff berth.

“A couple of those comeback victories that we had — in Portland and in Sacramento — showed the group coming tighter as a collective to find a way in the second half to up our level of physicality,” Lee said, “up our level of competitiveness, up our level of being able to execute and do this together.

“As the trip went on and on, we were good. But we want to be great. And we want to keep building on our good habits and make them a little more consistent, make them even more elite, more great.”

Now, the Hornets will have an opportunity to do just that in the friendly confines of Spectrum Center over the better part of the next two weeks. They won’t need those suitcases for a while.

Tuesday’s matchup with the Miami Heat tips off a season-long seven-game home stand for the Hornets. They also have dates with Orlando — which coincides with Dell Curry’s jersey being raised to the rafters — along with Memphis, Sacramento, New York, Philadelphia and Boston.

“Super excited to get back and play in front of our fans,” Coby White said, “take advantage of being at home and protecting home court. We’ve got a good home stretch here, and sometimes you don’t get this type of things on the schedule in terms of being home for so long. So. we’ve got to take full advantage of it and come out ready to compete.”

 

Which is precisely what Lee wants to see.

“We have to make sure that we bring a level of focus and readiness on this homestand,” Lee said “We play a lot of really good competition, and sometimes you can be too comfortable being home for that many days. The road many times makes you uncomfortable, makes you hungry.

“And we have to have that same hunger at home.”

Here’s what else of note the Hornets had to say in San Antonio:

On what the Hornets learned on this trip:

“I just learned that we are consistent competitors even more,” Lee said. “A four-game road trip like this, at times you can find reasons to not want to play. And excuses to say, ‘Hey, it’s not our night’ or ‘We’re on a West Coast trip’ or “We’ll get them when we get home. I thought every night, every quarter, every film session, every game, the guys were locked in on how do we get better, how do we make the most of it, how do we overcome whatever is in front of us.”

On whether there is some in-game statistic the coaching staff tracks, like floor burns:

“Floor burns — I like that,” Lee said. “We might add that to our stats. But we track our stingers. Our stingers being rim collisions, and verticalities, and blocked shots, and deflections and steals as well, as we call them, buzzkills. So any time we can get three stops in a row, we think that’s really huge for our team, for our momentum, for our ability to get out and play in space and also try to take the other team out of their offensive flow.”


©2026 The Charlotte Observer. Visit at charlotteobserver.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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