The Hornets’ chance at their first win streak: After an amazing display against the Boston Celtics, the Charlotte Hornets now have a chance to get their first back-to-back win. The Washington Wizards are one of the few teams in the league who not only have a worse record than the Hornets but also a worse net rating. Despite missing Terry Rozier and Nick Richards, the Hornets have every chance in the world to best the Wizards tonight.

Mark Williams, the potential X-factor: It’s no secret that Mark Williams has been playing well this season. In just 26.6 minutes per game he is averaging a statline of 13.8/10.0/1.5/0.9/0.8 while leading the leading the league in FG%, eFG% and TS%. He continues to be a good defender as he consistently improves the Hornets’ defense from pretty much everywhere on the court. He is also fresh off of a monster performance against Boston where he put up a statline of 18/16/2/1/3 and had the game +/- of +33.

The Wizards are a perfect matchup for Mark Williams as he is good at utilizing his length and does an amazing job controlling the boards against weaker rebounding teams. This was evident in the Hornets’ last two games against the Wizards. In the first one he only played 18 minutes likely due to foul trouble, the Wizards quickly blowing out the Hornets and just some strange coaching decisions by Clifford but he was incredibly efficient in those 18 minutes. He managed to record 14 points on a perfect 5-5 shooting, 7 rebounds and 1 block. He also had the highest +/- out of anyone on this team other than NSJ and Leaky Black who only played 4 minutes that were in garbage time. In the second game he managed to record 21 points and 24 rebounds and set a new franchise record for the Hornets. He had the most offensive rebounds by anyone in Charlotte Hornets history with 15! Daniel Gafford actually did good job defending Mark Williams 1-on-1 but that really didn’t matter since Mark could just grab his miss and get infininte chances. He also had a team high +/- of +19 that game. With Nick Richards still out Mark Williams get a lot of playing time. In his past 3 games he has played more minutes in each game than any other game this season. Everything seems to be in favour of Mark having another monster performance.

LaMelo Ball: I will be quick as there isn’t a lot to say other than that LaMelo Ball is amazing. In his last 8 games he’s averaging and MVP-caliber statline of 32.0/6.1/8.5/1.5/0.4 and doing so on 63% TS. The guy is insane, he has the worst stretch of his career (he had good reasons but still) and then immediatly follows it up with 30 point Triple-Double and the best stretch of his career. Praying that this insane stretch cotinues.

Miles Bridges: It feels weird to talk about him. I honestly don’t care about anyone’s opinion on his situation so I’m just gonna skip over it. He’s on the team now and that’s that. I do have to admit that despite how I feel about him he is an incredible basketball player. In his first 3 games this season, he is averaging a statline of 16.7/8.0/4.0/1.3/0.3 and has a TS% 57.8% In his last he a actually only shot 3-13 from the field but hit a crucial 3, hit all 6 of his free throws, recorded 15 rebounds and 5 assists. He will likely be the biggest difference between our 2 prior games against Washington and this one.