Charlotte Hornets guard Brandon Miller, right, reacts to a no call following a shot attempt during action against the New York Knicks at Spectrum Center in Charlotte, NC on Wednesday, November 26, 2025.
jsiner@charlotteobserver.com
Akin to finding a genie lamp and rubbing it for a few wishes, someone asked Charles Lee what he hoped to witness in the final hours of Thanksgiving Eve.
Given the Charlotte Hornets coach actually had his projected starting lineup of LaMelo Ball, Kon Knueppel, Brandon Miller, Miles Bridges and Ryan Kalkbrenner healthy for once, allowing him to trot them out against the New York Knicks to open the game for just the fourth time this season, Lee had a vision.
“I would love to come out and set a defensive tone,” Lee said. “I think that it’s really important for us to bring a level of physicality to this Knicks team. We know how good they are offensively, we know who their creators are and I would love to see on that end of the floor like that group especially set a tone for us as a starting unit.”
Didn’t happen, though.
Perhaps inspired by the holiday, the Hornets got into the festivities. Just in the wrong way. They allowed the Knicks to carve them up like a turkey, yielding far too many easy buckets in a 129-101 loss at Spectrum Center on Wednesday night.
In dropping their seventh straight game, the Hornets were also eliminated from advancing out of opening stage of this year’s Emirates NBA Cup. They’ve yet to win in three attempts this season, with the fourth and final outing coming Friday against Chicago.
Charlotte Hornets head coach Charles Lee, left, speaks with guard Collin Sexton during action against the New York Knicks at Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. The Knicks defeated the Hornets 129-101. JEFF SINER jsiner@charlotteobserver.com
The calendar hasn’t even flipped to December, yet the 2025-26 campaign is already slipping away from the Hornets, and they are fully aware of the cavernous hole they are digging themselves.
“We can’t keep talking about it, we can’t keep talking about it,” Collin Sexton said. “Like you always say, actions speak louder than words. And it’s time, it’s time for us to lock in and look ourselves in the mirror and (say), ‘How can I be better for the team, how can I get impact, meaning in which way?’ We’ve got to do it together. But it starts with looking at yourself in the mirror and how can I be better and understanding that it’s not going to be always good.
“You might have good days, you have bad days. But the one thing we can do is compete and shoot. If you go out fouling, go out swinging and the score is 0-3, then oh well. We’ve got to be more together, but also more competitive.”
Mentally, the Hornets (4-14) just have to be tougher.
Chatter is good and all, but this is a bottom-line business. Constantly chirping about what will eventually happen will soon fall on deaf ears and the fans will tune out, turned off by another disappointing season.
That’s why the Hornets must heed Lee’s postgame message.
“Think about the words that we say every day and try to find a way to actually have some action to follow up those words, because I think that we talk about the right things,” Lee said. “We are preparing ourselves in the right way. But now the action has to follow, and you have to be able to sustain it for a whole game.
“Embrace the adversity that comes with the game. The foul trouble, the different rotations, the different coverages. But you’ve still got to dig down and figure out what it’s going to take to just impact winning on both ends of the court throughout the whole game.”
Things got so bad against the Knicks (11-6) that Lee went with Moussa Diabate to start the second half. Apparently, Lee couldn’t take Karl-Anthony Towns, who posted 19 points and 10 rebounds, torturing them on the interior and decided to change the look via the lineup.
Anything to spark a team devoid of any semblance of a winning identity.
“The season’s not over, but guys on this team don’t like losing,” Bridges said. “We’ve got to do something to change it. So, I’m not happy to be losing. I’d rather win. We’ve just got to do something to change it.”
A good start would be ensuring they put forth the requisite amount of energy for a team that hasn’t even picked up enough victories to count on more than one hand through the season’s initial month-plus. Why wasn’t there a sustained intense showing despite the Hornets’ current position in the standings, which has them in the league’s bottom tier yet again?
“Yeah, that’s a great question,” Lee said. “I have to do a better job of preparing them and putting them in a position to give that effort. So, I will definitely take that.”
Here are some more key takeaways from the Hornets’ latest loss:
What’s up with LaMelo?
Ball’s shooting struggles aren’t getting any better.
The Hornets’ star point guard posted just 11 points against the Knicks and hasn’t been the same typical threat since returning after missing five games nursing a right ankle impingement.
Ball has reached 20 points only once in his past six outings and doesn’t have any double-doubles during that span, either. So what’s going on with him?
Charlotte Hornets guard LaMelo Ball, left, releases a one-handed runner as New York Knicks guard/forward Josh Hart applies defensive pressure during action at Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. JEFF SINER jsiner@charlotteobserver.com
“I just think we all got to focus on what it takes to win,” Lee said when asked about Ball’s play of late. “I think that if we give a little bit more focus to the defensive end of the floor, a little bit of those competitive plays where you got to come up with a 50-50 ball or a defensive rebound, that’ll put you in a better spot to have success throughout the whole game.
“The game usually rewards hard work and effort and competitiveness. And I just think that all of us can be better, and we’ll play better offensively.”
Lee on Liam
In discussing the progress of Liam McNeeley, Lee mentioned how the University of Connecticut product is adjusting to the difference between the college and pro games.
McNeeley is sometimes seen scrambling defensively, hustling to rotate to the open man when the Hornets are switching on that side of the ball. He remains a work in progress and his grinding mentality is welcomed.
“I don’t think he rides the roller coaster of the emotions that go on sometimes on the NBA journey,” Lee said. “And his approach every day has been really good. So it’s been good to see him earn more minutes as the season has gone on. I think that he prepares the way a professional needs to prepare at practices. He’s locked in game plan execution.
“At times he gets a little bit lost, but he does a good job of still competing even as he’s trying to figure out maybe where to be rotationally and then offensively. I think that he’s doing a much better job of crashing the offensive glass, understanding what it means to kind of connect and be ready to make plays on the perimeter and drive with some confidence. And so we’re just seeing him evolve.”
View from the other side
Although things didn’t go in the Hornets’ favor against New York, Charlotte’s rookie contingent continues to receive praise from all directions.
Knicks coach Mike Brown appears to be a believer in the class, featuring Knueppel, Kalkbrenner, McNeeley and Sion James. Brown praised Charlotte’s first-year players, even citing some of the things he noticed watching footage of the Hornets’ most recent action leading into their first meeting of the season.
“They all bring a lot of things to the table,” Brown said. “The most important thing is they bring energy. It seems like they all want to try to play with passion, and they all try to play hard. They’re still finding their way a little bit, but if you take them lightly or think that they’re rookies or young, they can beat you in a lot of different ways — from shooting to offensive rebounding to passing to handling the ball. It’s a really good class that they have.”
Specifically, Brown is also impressed with what he’s seen from Knueppel. There are moments the opposition goes at him, like when Miles McBride had Knueppel on skates a bit on one play in the first quarter, but Knueppel doesn’t back down.
Instead, he accepts the challenge and wants to show he can perform on both sides of the ball.
“One thing is, he doesn’t seem like he’s afraid or unsure,” Brown said. “Sometimes, as a rookie, even guys that get thrown in the fire right away, you can watch games and see the doubt a little bit in their eyes every once in a while.
“There’s no doubt in his mind, he knows exactly who he is and how he’s going to impact the game, and veterans can feed off of his confidence.”
This story was originally published November 26, 2025 at 11:06 PM.
Roderick Boone
The Charlotte Observer
Roderick Boone joined the Observer in September 2021 to cover the Charlotte Hornets and NBA. In his more than two decades of writing about the world of sports, he’s chronicled everything from high school rodeo to a major league baseball no-hitter to the Super Bowl to the Finals. The Long Island native has deep North Carolina roots and enjoys watching “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” endlessly.
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