History was made when the Charlotte Hornets took on the Chicago Bulls on Friday at United Center, but not the kind that either team would have wanted. The Hornets and Bulls missed 75 threes combined in that contest in Chicago and according to NBA analyst Nate Duncan, that set a new record for most misses in a regulation game.
The Hornets were the ones on the losing end on this historic night, having been beaten 109-95, and are a bit more to blame than the Bulls for this unwanted record being set. They missed 38 threes (8-46) while the home team missed 37 (14-51).
There were signs early on that we might get to witness history. The Hornets went 2-11 from three in the first quarter and then 0-6 in the second. The Bulls, meanwhile, went 5-18 and 3-12 respectively. That meant we saw 37 missed threes in the first half and the teams decided to do one better in the second by missing 38.
As for the players, well there is plenty of blame to go around with how many of them shot poorly. One man stood out, though.
Charlotte Hornets
Brandon Miller: 3-15
Vasilije Micic: 1-7
Miles Bridges: 0-6
Josh Green: 1-5
Cody Martin: 1-5
Isaiah Wong: 1-4
Tidjane Salaun: 1-3
KJ Simpson: 0-1
Chicago Bulls
Coby White: 2-9
Josh Giddey: 3-8
Patrick Williams: 0-5
Jalen Smith: 1-5
Matas Buzelis: 1-5
Zach LaVine: 1-4
Lonzo Ball: 1-4
Ayo Dosunmu: 3-6
Julian Phillips: 2-4
Talen Horten-Tucker: 0-1
Brandon Miller was the one to miss the most threes with 12 and Coby White was a distant second with seven. Miller has been letting it fly all season long, as he currently ranks second in the NBA with 11.1 threes attempted per game. The only man ahead of him is his teammate LaMelo Ball (13.1) but he didn’t play in this contest against the Bulls. Had Ball played, perhaps we might have seen even more misses.
While I understand teams wanting to shoot more and more threes, at some point you have to consider a Plan B when Plan A isn’t working. It wasn’t for either the Hornets or Bulls here, but they kept letting it fly from beyond the arc and kept missing.
Many have attributed teams just shooting threes all game as a reason for why the ratings are down. It could well be, but Commissioner Adam Silver disagrees with that notion. Silver blamed the World Series and the U.S. Presidential Election for the NBA’s low ratings.
While one can debate why the ratings are down, there is one thing about the style of play today that we know for sure and it’s that former players don’t like it. BJ Armstrong called today’s NBA players robots who just shoot three-pointers and hunt fouls.
I suppose Armstrong’s blood would have been boiling if he had tuned into the Bulls-Hornets game. These two teams will next face off on Dec. 30 and hopefully, they won’t shoot as badly in that one.
As for their next games, the 7-18 Hornets take on the Philadelphia 76ers at Spectrum Center on Monday at 7 PM ET while the 11-15 Bulls take on the Toronto Raptors at Scotiabank Arena on Monday at 7:30 PM ET.
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