Hornets take advantage of resting Pacers for 119-93 win
Dwight Howard finished with 14 points and 17 rebounds and Frank Kaminsky tied his career high with 24 points Tuesday night to lead the Charlotte Hornets past the Indiana Pacers, 119-93.
Charlotte ended the season with two wins in its last seven games.
The Pacers, who are locked into the No. 5 seed in the Eastern Conference, lost for the second time in three games with three starters sitting out. Darren Collison, T.J. Leaf and Glenn Robinson III all scored 13 points for Indiana.
With Bojan Bogdanovic, Victor Oladipo and Thaddeus Young all resting, the Hornets quickly took advantage of the short-handed Pacers.
Williams made four 3-pointers in the first quarter to help Charlotte take a 37-25 lead.
The Pacers cut the halftime deficit to 63-55 but never seriously threatened.
Charlotte delivered the knockout punch with a 13-4 run midway through the third quarter. When it ended, the Hornets had a 79-63 lead and the Pacers couldn’t cut the deficit to single digits again.
TIP-INS
Hornets: Ended a three-game losing streak in Indy. … Howard finished the season with a franchise-record 53 double-doubles and is one of three players to hold the single-season record with two teams. The others are Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain. … Howard also is one of six players to average a double-double in each of his first 13 seasons in the league. … Williams finished with 15 points and tied his career high with five 3s. … Malik Monk had 17 points and Nicolas Batum had 14 points, four rebounds and six assists. … Charlotte was 18 of 42 on 3s.
Pacers: Oladipo missed the game with a sore right foot but finished with the highest steals per game (2.36) since Ricky Rubio (2.32) in 2013-14. Oladipo also had a league-high 177 steals despite missing seven games. … Collison was 3 of 5 on 3s, improving his league-leading percentage to 46.8 percent. He also broke Chris Mullin’s single-season NBA franchise record (46.5) set in 1998-99. … Domantas Sabonis had 10 points and 10 rebounds while Lance Stephenson wound up with nine points, 13 rebounds and four assists. … Play was stopped during the fourth quarter when a T-shirt misfired onto the court during play.
UP NEXT
Hornets: The offseason.
Pacers: A trip to Philadelphia or Cleveland for a best-of-seven, first-round series.