76ers at Hornets
The Philadelphia 76ers are creeping closer to some dubious history and seem to be getting further away from their first win. The Charlotte Hornets will look to hand them a 13th straight loss to start the season when they host the 76ers on Friday.
Philadelphia was within single digits at the end of losses to San Antonio and Dallas in its previous two games and looked to be coming together before getting trounced 112-85 at home by the Indiana Pacers on Wednesday. The 76ers committed a season-high 31 turnovers in the loss and continued to struggle at the offensive end while going 5-of-25 from 3-point range. The Hornets are winners of six of the last nine games and are building one of the better backcourts in the league as Nicolas Batum and Kemba Walker get more comfortable playing with each other. The two combined for 42 points and 15 assists in a 116-111 win over Brooklyn on Wednesday.
TV: 7 p.m. ET, CSN Philadelphia, FSN Southeast (Charlotte)
ABOUT THE 76ERS (0-12): Philadelphia is within five losses of matching the franchise record for worst mark to start a season (set last year) and within six of tying the all-time record set by the 2009-10 New Jersey Nets. Friday’s contest marks the start of a six-game road trip that includes visits to Miami, Minnesota, Boston, Houston and Memphis, and coach Brett Brown is confident that Wednesday’s lackluster performance was not indicative of his team’s potential for improvement. “It starts with our abundance of turnovers,” Brown told reporters. “I felt it was one of those games that was an outlier for this group."
ABOUT THE HORNETS (6-6): Batum’s arrival from Portland in a trade over the summer immediately gave Walker another playmaker in the backcourt, and Charlotte supplemented that move by adding guards Jeremy Lin and Jeremy Lamb to fill out the bench. Lamb was the only one of the four that failed to reach double figures with six points in Wednesday’s game but is averaging 11.3. The Hornets have won four consecutive games at home and were beginning a stretch of seven straight in their own building with Wednesday’s triumph.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. The Hornets took two of the three meetings last season, including the lone battle in Charlotte 92-91 on Apr. 4.
2. Philadelphia SF Robert Covington is 0-of-9 from 3-point range in two games since returning from a knee injury.
3. Walker is 17-of-30 from the field in the last two games after failing to reach 50 percent from the floor in any of the previous four contests.