The Sacramento Kings were a shell of themselves in Charlotte on Tuesday night. They listed 10 players on out on their injury report, and the makeshift lineup they trotted out against a buzzing Hornets team was stung by the 3 ball.
Charlotte netted 26 triples, tied for the most in single-game franchise history, and trounced Sacramento 134-90, recording its fourth straight victory and its sixth in the past seven games.
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In the process, LaMelo Ball moved into second all-time for Hornets 3-pointers, passing Dell Curry, who just had his No. 30 jersey retired by the organization. The 24-year-old Ball has been with the Hornets since they drafted him No. 3 overall in 2020.
Close to six seasons into his NBA career, he’s now looking up at only four-time All-Star Kemba Walker on the franchise’s all-time 3-point leaderboard.
The Hornets (38-34), who are ninth in the Eastern Conference standings but just 2.5 games out of fifth place in that crowded table, had four players connect on at least three long-range attempts.
Ball (6-of-13 from 3), Coby White (6-of-8), Kon Knueppel (4-of-7) and Brandon Miller (3-of-10) spearheaded the swarm from deep. White had a team-high 27 points, and Ball wasn’t far behind with 20 to go along with his 8 assists, 6 rebounds and 2 steals.
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As for the Kings (19-54), they had just eight players available, the minimum number a team can dress without forfeiting, per league rules.
Sacramento is one of several NBA teams clearly ready to turn the page to this year’s NBA Draft. The Kings were bit by the injury bug months ago, and they’ve been without a bundle of their top players since February. That’s notably when Zach LaVine, Domantas Sabonis and De’Andre Hunter all underwent season-ending surgery.
As they dropped like flies out of the lineup, the Kings experienced a franchise-worst 16-game skid.
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But putting a stop to that slide marked the beginning of an eyebrow-raising stretch that saw Sacramento go 7-7 from Feb. 23 to March 22. The short-handed Kings looked much more like a bottom dweller than a .500 team on Tuesday in Charlotte, though.
Sacramento shot just 40.7% from the field. For reference, Charlotte went 26-of-55, or 47.3%, from 3-point land.
Two days removed from leading the team with 32 points, Malik Monk finished with a mere seven on 3-of-13 shooting. That’s as many points as DeMar DeRozan registered, too. Monk, who began his career in Charlotte, did have a career-high 14 assists, but his team needed a lot more scoring on a night it lost by 44 points.
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The Hornets first hit 26 3s in a game on March 14, 2025. They won that one as well, 145-134 over the San Antonio Spurs.