Bahamian professional basketball players Chavano ‘Buddy’ Hield and Kai Jones represented The Bahamas twice on the international stage last summer. On Monday night, they were on opposite teams on opposite sidelines, and Jones and the Charlotte Hornets got the better of Hield and the Indiana Pacers, winning 115-109 at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The two Bahamian National Basketball Association (NBA) players both experienced significant minutes on the floor.
Jones, who has been experiencing an uptick in minutes, made his only field goal attempt of the game. In 16 minutes, he finished with two points. Hield tied a team-high 20 points in the loss.
Hield shot 7-for-17 from the field including 4-for-12 from deep in 30 minutes of play. He was able to grab four rebounds and had one assist. Myles Turner also had 20 points for the Pacers. Jones was able to grab three rebounds and had two blocks. Kelly Oubre Jr. came away with a game-high 28 points in the victory for the Hornets.
The Pacers still have a chance to make the play-in tournament of the NBA playoffs as they sit in the 12th position with a 32-40 win/loss record. The Chicago Bulls are in 10th with a 34-37 record. The Hornets have been eliminated from the playoffs, sporting a 23-50 record.
Jones had a slam dunk at the 10:32 mark to tie the game at 90 points. Hield gave his team a 92-90 lead with 10:10 left in the game. He continued putting his offensive talent on display in that quarter, making two three point shots with the second one giving the Pacers a 105-96 lead with 6:23 left in the game. After that shot by Hield, the Pacers went ice cold. They were held scoreless for five minutes and the Hornets went on a 13-0 scoring run to take a 109-105 lead in the contest.
That scoring run was the decisive point of the game as the Pacers had no response.
Both teams shot the ball almost identical from the field, percentage wise, as the Hornets buried 45.6 percent of their shots while the Pacers converted 45.1 percent.
Hield has a league leading 265 shots from deep with the Golden State Warriors’ Klay Thompson on his heels with 261 made three pointers. Hield is averaging 3.7 made three-pointers per game and with 10 games left in the season, he is on pace to eclipse his own single-season record in made three pointers which is 282. If he continues making three pointers at this clip, he will likely go over the 300-made three pointers mark. If he does that, he will join only two other players in NBA history to do it – the Warriors’ Stephen Curry and the Philadelphia 76ers’ James Harden. Curry did it four times and Harden did it once.
Jones has recorded double digits in minutes played in his last five games and even touched 27 minutes in his last outing. In that game, he scored a career-high 10 points. With nine games left in the season for the Hornets, Jones could continue to experience significant playing time. His next opportunity to take the floor will be tomorrow night when they head on the road to play the New Orleans Pelicans at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, Louisiana. That game tips off at 8 o’ clock.
Hield and the Pacers will look to keep their play-in hopes alive when they make a trip out of the country to play against the Toronto Raptors at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, tonight. That game gets underway at 7:30 p.m.
