Wizards vs. Hornets final score: Washington picks up big 109-99 win in Charlotte

The Washington Wizards earned their sixth road win of the season with an 109-99 win over the Charlotte Hornets on Monday night. Washington improved to 24-20 on the season and now have a 1.5 game lead over the Charlotte in the Eastern Conference standings.

John Wall got off to a pretty hot start, scoring 13 points while shooting 6-7 from the field in the quarter. The team as a whole shot 54 percent in the quarter as they jumped out to a 30-22 lead.

Former Wizards Ramon Sessions helped generate some momentum for the Hornets’ bench in the second quarter to get the lead down to three, but the Wizards responded and quickly got the lead back up to double-digits. The only thing that kept the Wizards from opening the lead up more was the six turnovers they committed in the quarter. But thankfully for Washington, the Hornets shot a miserable 38 percent in the second quarter, which kept them from capitalizing.

After shooting 2-11 in the first half, Kemba Walker started to heat up but the Hornets’ lack of communication on defense gave them problems. Bradley Beal took advantage by making three shots from deep in the quarter to keep Charlotte at bay. The Hornets finally got it together to make a run late int he quarter, cutting the lead from 15 down to 8 as the game moved into the final frame.

In the fourth, Trey Burke and Bradley Beal used their shotmaking to take a 16 point lead. The lead wouldn’t grow any larger than that as the Wizards’ turnover issues flared back up, allowing Charlotte to close within 8 before Washington finally put it away in the final two minutes.

Here’s what else we noticed in the win:

Defense covers up turnover issues

The Hornets only shot 38.9 percent from the field in this one. Kemba Walker was 7-24 from the field and Nicolas Batum was just 2-9 from the field.

Credit Washington’s defense for shutting down Charlotte’s top options, but also acknowledge the defensive effort would have looked even better if the Wizards had done a better job of protecting the ball, especially Wall and Beal who combined for 9 turnovers. If Charlotte had been a little more effective shooting the ball those turnovers could have come back to hurt the Wizards a lot more than they did.

Morris, Porter, and Beal find their rhythm

Markieff Morris was impressive in this one with 23 points, 8 rebounds and a pair of assists after a strong outing in Detroit on Saturday. Otto Porter picked up his 7th double-double of the year with 14 points and 13 rebounds. Bradley Beal, who was shooting a horrific 1-21 from three point range over the past three games, was able to climb out of that funk against Charlotte going 4-9 from long distance.