Following practice on Thursday, the Charlotte Hornets provided injury updates on Terry Rozier and P.J. Washington, both of whom missed Wednesday’s game against the Sixers. The pair moved in different directions in terms of their statuses for Friday’s game against the Sixers, Rozier upgraded to probable while Washington was listed as doubtful for Friday’s contest.
In Rozier’s absence from the starting lineup, LaMelo Ball stepped in and stepped up, helping the team to a comeback win against the Raptors before scoring 22 points against the Sixers. His performance was enough that head coach James Borrego didn’t see it as a foregone conclusion that Ball would move back to the bench if Rozier is available on Friday.
“We’ll look at a few combinations,” he said. “We could go back to our original lineup or we can go with something similar to what we’ve been doing right now. I don’t have an answer for you right now. I’m going to work through that. I’m going to get clarity on Terry. I don’t want to speculate right now. I’m assuming P.J. is out tomorrow but again you never know. So, let’s see how the dust settles today and I’ll have more clarity tomorrow.”
On Wednesday, Ball’s 22 points came on 8-of-16 shooting on top of seven rebounds and three rebounds. However, his six turnovers, expectedly, were also part of the focus of Borrego’s assessment of his performance.
“I thought he was better last night,” he said. “I thought he impacted that game. The area of growth for him are the six turnovers. I thought trying to make too many plays at the wrong time cost us at times but, in general, he’s trying to play the right way. He’s playing with pace. So, I thought overall a pretty solid game but we have to clean up a few things, especially against top-tier teams like Philly.
“We can’t turn it over 19 times against a team like that,” Borrego added. “We have to take care of the ball. The last couple of nights, we had done very good taking care of the ball and it’s not a coincidence that we won those games. Last night, if we had kept those turnovers to 10,12, we’re probably winning that game.”
Interestingly, Ball and Devonte’ Graham have excelled this season together. In 280 minutes on the court together this season, Ball and Graham have a net rating of +10.0, second-highest of any pairing with at least 250 minutes played together on the Hornets this season.
There would be a number of ways the Hornets could go if the plan is to keep Ball in the starting lineup. The Ball-Graham-Rozier pairing has had success this year, posting a +18.2 net rating in 73 minutes if the team wants to start all three guards. Likewise, the Ball-Graham-Bridges trio has played 214 minutes and has a net rating of +7.6.
Ultimately, it’s likely that, for now, Ball moves back to the bench as the Hornets continue to bring him along slowly.