Hornets rain threes, bury Kings in a 44-point rout

The Hornets don’t just beat the Kings — they blitz them. Charlotte’s 134-90 win is over almost as soon as it starts to tilt, and once the home side gets rolling from deep, Sacramento never finds an answer. The final margin swells to 46, but the real story is how quickly the Hornets turn a manageable game into a runaway, shooting 58.7% from the field and burying Sacramento under a barrage of threes.

The opening minutes are actually the closest this game ever feels. Sacramento briefly grabs its biggest lead of the night at 2-0, but Charlotte answers immediately with an 8-0 burst. LaMelo Ball knocks down a 24-foot three off a Moussa Diabaté assist, then Jalen Green runs into a three to push the Hornets to 20-10. That early sequence matters because it sets the tone: Charlotte is getting downhill, getting spacing, and getting clean looks before Sacramento can settle in.

The second quarter is where the game starts slipping away for good. Charlotte opens the frame with a 12-point run, and the key swing comes on a K. Knueppel three that stretches the lead from 63-47 to 75-47. The Hornets are already dictating pace, but this is where the floor completely tilts. Ball keeps finding shooters, the Kings are stuck chasing, and Charlotte’s ball movement turns every closeout into a scramble. By halftime, it’s 72-47, and the body language says it all: Sacramento is already playing from behind in a game that’s moving too fast for it to solve.

The third quarter is the knockout. Charlotte stacks a 15-0 run that starts from 83-57 and ends at 98-57, with B. Miller drilling a 26-footer as part of the surge. Then comes another 11-0 run later in the period, capped by a L. McNeeley finish off G. Williams’ passing touch, and suddenly the Hornets are up 122-76. That’s the turning point in the clearest sense — not a single possession, but a full quarter of punishment. Charlotte isn’t just scoring; it’s turning every Sacramento miss into the next dagger. The Kings never get a counterpunch in, and the lead keeps ballooning until the game is effectively over before the fourth even begins.

Even the closing minutes stay sharp. D. Carter buries a 28-foot three at 4:40, McNeeley answers with another long ball at 4:19, X. Tillman adds a steal, and D. Cardwell swats a shot in the kind of late-game sequence that tells you the Hornets are still playing with edge despite the margin. Charlotte closes at 134, with T. Mann drilling one more three in the final minutes and D. McDermott adding a fadeaway before the horn. It’s the sort of finish that underscores the gap between the teams: the Hornets remain organized and aggressive all the way through, while Sacramento is left trying to salvage possessions in garbage time.

The stat lines match the eye test. Coby White torching the Kings for 27 points in just 18 minutes, with six threes on 75% shooting, is the kind of efficient scoring burst that can break a game open in a hurry. LaMelo Ball adds 20 points, six boards, and eight assists in only 23 minutes, while Moussa Diabaté posts a 17-point, 11-rebound double-double. Malik Monk’s 14 assists help keep the offense humming, and Charlotte’s 40-point third quarter is the exclamation point on a night where nearly everything clicks.

For Sacramento, this is a rough one — not just a loss, but a reminder of how dangerous Charlotte can be when the perimeter shot is falling and the ball movement is crisp. For the Hornets, it’s the kind of blowout that can carry momentum into the next stretch: explosive guard play, multiple secondary creators, and a defense that forces the Kings into a long night chasing shadows. When Charlotte shoots like this and strings together runs, it can put a game away before the opponent knows it’s in trouble.