Hornets at Trail Blazers
The Charlotte Hornets can't quite seem to figure out a way out of their current funk and dropped four straight and 11 of 15 to fall two games under .500. The schedule only gets tougher on Tuesday, when the Hornets kick off a three-game road trip that stops in Golden State and Utah by visiting the Portland Trail Blazers.
Charlotte suffered three-point losses to the New York Knicks and the Sacramento Kings on back-to-back nights Friday and Saturday, leaving the team searching for answers. "It's really disappointing the way we're playing," star guard Kemba Walker told reporters. "We're just not putting together full games. We're playing in spurts a lot, making a lot of mistake, just really bad mistakes. We're not giving ourselves a chance to win these games." The Trail Blazers are singing a similar tune after falling behind by 21 points against the Golden State Warriors on Sunday night and battling all the way back only to have Evan Turner's 3-point attempt in the final second come up just short in the 113-111 setback. "We didn't necessarily execute as well as we could have to get one of those two guys (Damian Lillard or C.J. McCollum) the ball, but Evan was the third option and we needed to get the ball inbounds because we didn't have any timeouts," Portland coach Terry Stotts told reporters.
TV: 10 p.m. ET, NBATV, FSN Southeast (Charlotte), CSN Northwest (Portland)
ABOUT THE HORNETS (23-25): One of Charlotte's few wins in the last three weeks was a 107-85 home drubbing of the Trail Blazers on Jan. 18, when the Hornets held Portland to 35.1 percent from the field and got 23 points on 8-of-14 shooting from Walker. The UConn product is averaging 24.6 points this month - up from his season mark of 23.3 - but is not getting much help. Shooting guard Nicolas Batum committed five of the team's 11 turnovers in Saturday's 109-106 setback and gave it up at least four times in five of the last eight contests.
ABOUT THE TRAIL BLAZERS (21-28): McCollum led the way with 28 points in Sunday's narrow loss and warmed up for his second straight 3-point contest appearance during All-Star weekend next month by hitting 5-of-7 from beyond the arc. The 25-year-old Lehigh product was held to 16 points on 5-of-18 shooting in a loss at Philadelphia on Jan. 20 but is shooting 57.8 percent from the field in the last four contests. Lillard was rolling right along as well until scoring 19 points on 6-of-14 shooting Sunday to snap a string of seven straight games scoring 20 or more.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Hornets SG Marco Belinelli had a streak of four straight games scoring in double figures come to an end when he went 1-of-7 from 3-point range and finished with seven points on Saturday.
2. Portland C Mason Plumlee recorded a double-double in each of the last five contests.
3. Charlotte fell 109-91 in its visit to Portland last season as Walker was held to 14 points on 4-of-13 shooting.