The Charlotte Hornets went to Atlanta last night to take on the Atlanta Hawks for the play-in tournament. The Hornets were the 10th seed in the Eastern Conference and had to face the Hawks who held the 9th seed to see who would play against Cleveland on Friday for a chance to secure the 8th seed in the Eastern Conference and take on the Miami Heat. But an interesting incident occurred before the game.
As the Charlotte Hornets were arriving on their bus to the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, a train had stopped which blocked the path of the bus. As a result, in order to avoid getting late and missing their warm-up routines, the players and staff of the Hornets got off the bus and began walking to the arena. Montrezl Harrell even documented the players walking to the arena on Instagram.
The Hornets really had to walk to the arena for their play-in game against the Hawks today 😬
Their bus was delayed by a train.
(via @MONSTATREZZ) https://t.co/wregvsuOmq
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) April 14, 2022
Charlotte Hornets head coach James Borrego was quite annoyed with the incident and suggested it may have been intentional. Speaking in his pre-game press conference, Borrego noted that the train had never stopped before, and questioned why the train had stopped when he and his team had to reach the arena. Borrego added that his players were fueled by the incident, and wanted to get a win.
Interesting bit of spice added to #Hornets and #Hawks — a train stopped in front of Charlotte's bus and delayed their arrival to the arena
James Borrego: "In my 20 years I've never seen that train stop…Our guys noticed…that's good fuel for us."@wcnc I #NBA pic.twitter.com/B4pYQRyAcP
— Nick Carboni (@NickCarboniWCNC) April 13, 2022
“In my 20 years I’ve never seen that train stop. Never seen that. I’ve been coming to this arena for 20 years, I’ve never seen the train stop before the game. Somebody figure it out, I have no idea. Our guys noticed… that’s good fuel for us.”
The motivation the players got from the incident was not enough, as the Hornets ended up losing to the Atlanta Hawks. This is the second year in a row that the Hornets have lost in the play-in tournament. The entire evening was very frustrating for Hornets players.
Miles Bridges let the frustration get the better of him, as he threw his mouthguard at a heckling fan. But the mouthguard inadvertently hit a young fan in the crowd. After the game, Bridges asked fans to help him get in touch with the fan so that he could apologize and make amends for what happened.
