The Hornets drop 158 behind Kelly Oubre's insane night
When your team drops 158 points, saying “we kind of got in that zone” is the understatement of the year. The Charlotte Hornets broke a ton of records and finished their regular-season sweep of the Pacers, avenging the beatdown Indiana gave them in the play-in game last season.
Oubre's career evening
If you look at the box score, the Hornets starters had good games, LaMelo had an awesome one, but the numbers still don't come close to 158. LaMelo Ball - 29, Miles Bridges - 22, Terry Rozier - 20, Cody Martin - 11 and Mason Plumlee - 7. That adds up to 89 points, 69 short to get to 158. Then your eyes go down to the bench, and everything makes sense.
Kelly Oubre
39 points
12-18 FG (66.6%)
10-15 3PT (66.6%)
5-6 FT (83.3%)
5 rebounds
3 assists
2 steals
This game was historic in many ways. Oubre became the fifth player in league history to make 10 3s in a game off the bench. This was definitely Oubre's night, but we have to point out that LaMelo gave us a stellar performance - 29/10/13, 11-16 FG, 3-4 3PT, 5-6 FT.
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The Hornets broke the franchise single-game scoring record, mostly thanks to a huge third quarter. That helped them achieve another impressive feat - Charlotte scored 87 points in the second half (also a franchise record), the most by any team after halftime since the Rockets scored 94 against the Nuggets on Jan. 10, 1991.
To be fair to the Pacers, they were missing three starters, and their leading scorer was Goga Bitadze with 17. Still, you never want to be on a receiving end on a night like this. This was the most points scored by a Pacers opponent all-time. That's how bad it got.
Highest scoring games ever
The highest-scoring game ever in NBA history is the Nuggets - Pistons 3OT blowout from 1983. The Pistons won 186-184, a total of 370 points scored. It's still the only NBA match with 4 players who scored at least 40 points -Isiah Thomas and John Long for the Pistons, and Kiki VanDeWeghe and Alex English for the Nuggets. If you don't know about them, here's a story on one of the most underrated duos in NBA history, English & VanDeWeghe.
You're probably saying,”yeah, well that was a 3OT game.” To give you a better reference point to what we saw last night, the highest score in regulation ever happened in 1990. The Nuggets and Warriors dropped 320 points, the Warriors won 162 - 158. No surprise the legendary Run TMC trio - Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond,��and Chris Mullin - were the "guilty party" behind this insane game. Given how Don Nelson coached them, it makes perfect sense.
“Probably something guys wouldn’t do now. Middle of season, playing well, he [Nelson] would just walk to the chalkboard and put up 120 and circle it. ‘Let’s go 120 tonight and let’s get out of here.‘ No scouting report, no defense. That was nice, that’s a cool way to come and play the game.”
Chris Mullin, The Habershow
Nelson didn't call any plays and told his guys as long as they share the ball and play the right way, they would have total freedom on offense. Thirty years later, their highlights still look amazing — a team before its time.
