Gordon Hayward’s availability (knock on wood) has been the difference for the Hornets

Comfortably relaxing in a courtside chair that goes for hundreds of dollars once the Fiserve Forum doors open up, Gordon Hayward is a picture of peace.

His warmup routine with his Charlotte Hornets teammates is complete and he’s soaking up the final seconds. While a few were still out on the court shouting at each other in their brotherly joking manner, hoisting a few more jumpers as they talked trash, Hayward is just cooling out.

Before getting his latest opportunity to play against Milwaukee in front of his mother and father, who drove up here just off the shores of Lake Michigan from their Indiana home, he engages in a chat about how his second season with the Hornets is going after signing his mega deal a little over a year ago.

“I feel like I’ve had some up and down games this year,” Hayward told The Observer. “I still feel pretty good about where I’m at. I just have to continue to be aggressive. That’s the biggest thing — be aggressive looking for shots and playmaking.”

That’s what he did in the fourth quarter of the Hornets’ loss in Chicago on Monday, the second stop of their four-game road trip. Hayward pumped in 11 points in the closing minutes to assist in the Hornets’ late charge, but they couldn’t overcome the cavernous 23-point second-half deficit they dropped into against the Bulls.

It was one of those occasions when he felt he had to rise up and take command of some of the scoring duties, asserting himself offensively.

“Yeah, I think so,” he said. “I think also a lot of those were in transition. Got some layups, some stuff, some threes. I think it’s finding my spots to be aggressive.”

Through the season’s first month-plus, Hayward is quietly doing some of the dirty work and his individual numbers don’t quite reflect his importance. He’s averaging 17.2 points, grabbing 5.4 rebounds and handing out 3.4 assists per game, the former two being above his career averages and the latter a mere .01 off his usual showing in that category.

“He’s a stabilizing force for us on both sides of the ball,” coach James Borrego said, ”(he’s) bringing us great leadership, I.Q., size. That’s what I saw from him last year. That’s why we missed him so much last year. So very much the same approach for us this year. We are best when he’s on the floor.”

Given his unlucky injury history — or even his bout with COVID during the preseason — that is what matters most with Hayward. (Knock on wood) He’s played in every one of the Hornets’ games this season and they haven’t done much load management with him. It’s been calculated on the training staff’s end, but a lot of the credit behind the scenes has to go to the 31-year-old’s willingness to listen to them.

“He’s handled it well,” Borrego said. “His body is holding up. Obviously, we’ve got to continue to manage him and watch his minutes and his long runs. I’m trying to shorten his runs so we are not having too long of runs out there for him. But the goal is to get him to game 82. We know if we can get a healthy Gordon through 82 games, we are going to be in good shape down the stretch. So this is a major key for us to keep him on the floor and manage his body and his minutes.”

Just having him available this much has been a huge boost. Team-wise, his on-court numbers offensively rank second, meaning the 80.6 points per game the Hornets put up when he’s out there can’t go unnoticed. Also, when he’s on the bench, the Hornets’ offense musters 33.9 points, which is the second-fewest on the team.

“It’s not something that I think about,” Hayward said. “I’m just out here trying to help us and that means different things on different nights. We’ve talked about it before but I’ve got to continue to be aggressive not just for myself, but for others. And try to be in the right spacing, giving an opportunity for different people to make a play, the right cuts all that type of stuff.”

Maybe Hayward doesn’t ponder much about his on-off numbers, but Borrego does.

“We saw it last year,” Borrego said. “We had a major drop off when Gordon was not out there. He’s just a smart basketball player. He makes plays that don’t show up in stat sheets. He makes a random cut, a random pass that leads to an easy basket. He’s a grown-up on the floor for us. We are a very young team and he’s one of those stabilizing forces for us.”

Even so, Hayward’s presence isn’t going to fully have the necessary effect if the Hornets’ issues on defense are not soon corrected. In five of their last eight games leading into their matchup with the Bucks on Wednesday night, they have surrendered at least 115 points. Teams are scoring too easily and that problem becomes two-fold.

Not only are they constantly finding themselves in large holes they have to dig out of, but they are unable to do something they enjoy and excel at: Allowing LaMelo Ball & Co. to get out on the fastbreak and pick up some buckets in transition.

“When we don’t get stops, we can’t do that,” Hayward said. “It’s a defensive problem, really, (leads) to an offensive problem, and our defense has been very subpar the last two games. So it’s going to be another huge test. Obviously, the defending champions, plus with the weapons that they have — Giannis in transition is maybe better than anybody in the league. So it’s going to be on us to get stops. load up so that we can run.”