The Hornets are missing their shot creators after latest loss to Knicks

For one half of basketball Tuesday night, it appeared that the Charlotte Hornets had found a solution to scoring struggles in recent games.

Despite being without three of their top five scorers, the Hornets scored 66 points at halftime, were shooting 56% from the floor overall and 68% from 3 against the New York Knicks, one of the NBA’s better defensive teams.

Then the third quarter happened. And the Hornets, who had played beautiful basketball in the first half, looked stagnant and out of sorts in a 109-97 loss to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden.

R.J. Barrett led the Knicks with 24 points. It was the Knicks’ (32-27) seventh consecutive win.

It was an important game for the Hornets (28-29), who sit at eighth in the Eastern Conference standings. They’ve now lost five of their past six games and fell below .500 for the first time since March 3.

Hornets go cold in third quarter

After entering halftime with a 66-60 lead, the Hornets went cold and were outscored 31-16 in the third quarter.

The Hornets shot 6 of 21 in the third quarter and were 2 of 10 from 3. A big reason for their lack of scoring in the third quarter was the lack of ball movement.

Hornets coach James Borrego said his team would need better ball movement and pacing with three of their best shot creators — Malik Monk, Gordon Hayward and LaMelo Ball — out with injuries.

Many of the Hornets’ third-quarter possessions turned into one-on-one basketball, and they were not successful.

Point guard Terry Rozier scored 21 points in 38 minutes, but had only three points in the second half.

P.J. Washington doesn’t look bothered by ankle injury

In only his second game back since a sprained ankle sidelined him for three games, P.J. Washington had one of his better games against the Knicks.

He scored a team-high 26 points off the bench for the Hornets and made a season-high six 3s. It was the second-most points Washington has scored in a game this season.

While Washington came off the bench in the first half, he started the second half. However, that adjustment didn’t help much as the Knicks dominated the Hornets in the second half. After scoring 21 points in the first half, Washington had only five points in the second half.

Credit the Knicks, who closed out on Washington whenever he was at the 3-point line.

Washington’s 26-point game came after he scored 23 against the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday.

“He looks like he has his legs, was very aggressive,” Borrego said Tuesday night. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t find him much there in the second half. The shots he did have didn’t fall.”

No easy buckets

The Hornets were 3 of 8 from the free-throw line. They settled for a lot of contested 3s in the second half and failed to effectively drive the ball to the basket.

That played into the Knicks’ hands, who played much better defense after halftime. The Hornets scored only 31 points in the second half.

“The goal tonight was to get to the rim,” Borrego said. “To create offense for us downhill. Our guys drove it tonight. Why we didn’t get the free-throw calls, I don’t know. I’m going to have to watch the film and see if there was more opportunity to put pressure on the rim and draw some fouls.”

The Hornets finished the game shooting 45% from the floor overall.

Meanwhile, the Hornets couldn’t stop the Knicks outside of Julius Randle, who was 5 of 16 from the floor, and finished with 16 points.

He was one of six Knicks’ players to score 16 points or more.

“We’ve been allowing teams to get easy buckets, and for us, when that happens teams start to roll on us,” Washington said. “It’s hard for us to come down and get a bucket, so for us we’ve got to stop people’s momentum a little bit better and focus on our offense and get the ball moving and find each other for good shots.”