Recap: Wizards stifle Hornets for 95-79 NBA Cup win

The Wizards rode a swarming and stingy defense to overcome a slow offensive start and beat the Charlotte Hornets, 95-79 in their opening NBA Cup contest of 2026.

Washington asserted themselves midway through the second quarter, closing the half on a 16-8 run to take a 51-46 halftime lead. The run continued when play resumed in the second half with the Wizards blasting the Hornets 28-13 in the third period.

Trae Young helps the Wizards with a supernatural ability to make opponents foul him. | NBAE via Getty Images

The fourth quarter was a lead-retention grind — the Wizards cause abetted by a Charlotte team that struggled to make any shot, even when Washington was conceding open looks.

The Wizards defense deserves lots of credit for Charlotte’s horrific night. Rotations were crisp, communication was superb, and they gave the Hornets little space to operate. Charlotte deserves some credit too — they missed everything from everywhere. On the night, the Hornets shot 35.3% on twos, 21.4% on threes, and 58.3% from the free throw line. Those clanking, thudding, and smashing sounds you heard all night was Charlotte taking shots.

Washington’s offense wasn’t much better, though it was good enough. The Wizards made just 41.9% on twos, but kinda-sorta compensated for the bricklaying inside the arc by hitting 10-30 from three (33.3%), and 29-35 from the free throw line.

Trae Young was a valuable offensive engine. He entered the night fifth in the NBA in drawing fouls, and he tortured Charlotte throughout the evening with his abrupt changes of pace and unorthodox, out-of-the-normal-rhythm offensive style.

Young finished the night with 21 points, 9 assists, and 7 rebounds. The points came on just nine field goal attempts because of his supernatural ability to draw fouls. He shot 12-14 from the free throw line, and contributed 8-10 strong defensive plays.

Anthony Davis led the Wizards with 25 points, 13 rebounds, and some paint-clogging, rim-protecting defense.

In his second start and his home debut, AJ Dybantsa pumped in 17 points and grabbed 8 rebounds. His night included some eye-popping offensive moves and some stellar defensive effort.

The victory moves Washington to a 3-3 record on the season, a 1-0 record in Cup play this season, and a 2-11 all-time Cup record.

From the Notebook

• The Wizards broadcast had John Wall and Brendan Haywood, which was terrific — especially when they got technical or told “back in my day” stories. It was less good when Haywood devolved into cliches and Chris Miller got into his big ol’ bag of propaganda.
• Example 1: In the third quarter, Haywood started in with the well-worn and inaccurate nostrum that good teams can win on bad offensive nights if they play well on defense. While it’s kinda true, it’s only partially so. Teams can also win on bad defensive nights if they play on offense. And there’s zero evidence that a team’s defensive performance is more consistent or durable than their offensive performance.
• Example 2: Sometime in the second half, Miller exclaimed, “AD is lethal from the midrange!” to agreement from Haywood and Wall. Except, Davis entered the night shooting close to 30% on twos from further than three feet. This is nothing new — Davis has been a below-average midrange shooter for the past several seasons.
• Complaints aside, I loved the Wall-Haywood exchanges. There was a moment in the first quarter when Haywood asked Wall what he looked for when running pick-and-roll. Wall’s response was fascinating — he wasn’t focused on his man or the big. His key was the weakside help defender.
• Kyshawn George played a strong second half, and I liked his overall game. While he missed shots in the first half, he played disciplined defense, avoided the over-aggressive fouls, and didn’t commit silly turnovers. In the second half, the shots went in, and he kept finding Davis for at-rim attempts.
• I’m starting to get a little worried about whether Davis and Alex Sarr can play together effectively. The early returns have not been good.
• Bilal Coulibaly posted a terrible PPA (see below) while also making several stellar defensive plays and helping harass Brandon Miller into a subpar night. It’d be nice if Coulibaly could display some semblance of an offensive game to go with the defense.
• At halftime, I noted that Khris Middleton had played poorly in four minutes and that I’d be okay with him not taking the floor again. He didn’t — sitting the entire second half.

Four Factors

Below are the four factors that decide wins and losses in basketball — shooting (efg), rebounding (offensive rebounds), ball handling (turnovers), fouling (free throws made).

The four factors are measured by:

• eFG% (effective field goal percentage, which accounts for the three-point shot)
• OREB% (offensive rebound percentage)
• TOV% (turnover percentage — turnovers divided by possessions)
• FTM/FGA (free throws made divided by field goal attempts)

FOUR FACTORSHORNETSWIZARDSLGAVGeFG%33.6%45.2%53.2%OREB%29.0%19.6%27.1%TOV%10.3%14.4%14.0%FTM/FGA0.0650.3970.221PACE97100.9ORTG8198112.5Stats & Metrics

PPA is my overall production metric, which credits players for things they do that help a team win (scoring, rebounding, playmaking, defending) and dings them for things that hurt (missed shots, turnovers, bad defense, fouls).

PPA is a per possession metric designed for larger data sets. In small sample sizes, the numbers can get weird. In PPA, 100 is average, higher is better and replacement level is 45. For a single game, replacement level isn’t much use, and I reiterate the caution about small samples sometimes producing weird results.

POSS is the number of possessions each player was on the floor in this game.

ORTG = offensive rating, which is points produced per individual possessions x 100. League average so far this season is listed in the Four Factors table above. Points produced is not the same as points scored. It includes the value of assists and offensive rebounds, as well as sharing credit when receiving an assist.

USG = offensive usage rate. Average is 20%. Median last season was 17.7%.

ORTG and USG are versions of stats created by former Wizards assistant coach Dean Oliver and modified by me. ORTG is an efficiency measure that accounts for the value of shooting, offensive rebounds, assists and turnovers. USG includes shooting from the floor and free throw line, offensive rebounds, assists and turnovers.

+PTS = “Plus Points” is a measure of the points gained or lost by each player based on their efficiency in this game compared to league average efficiency on the same number of possessions. A player with an offensive rating (points produced per possession x 100) of 100 who uses 20 possessions would produce 20 points. If the league average efficiency is 115, the league — on average — would produced 23.0 points in the same 20 possessions. So, the player in this hypothetical would have a +PTS score of -3.0.

Players are sorted by total production in the game.

WIZARDSMINPOSSORTGUSG+PTSPPA+/-Trae Young387812026.7%1.624413Anthony Davis347011030.5%-0.420613AJ Dybantsa306011322.8%0.12057Bub Carrington204016912.7%2.92462Kyshawn George32649917.0%-1.511114Deandre Ayton17347217.7%-2.4-192Tre Johnson13265321.5%-3.3-1044Bilal Coulibaly2245586.3%-1.5-614Alex Sarr29583314.7%-6.8-6222Khris Middleton5908.6%-0.9-2253Tre Mann12048.1%-0.9-744-2Will Riley12048.1%-0.9-745-2HORNETSMINPOSSORTGUSG+PTSPPA+/-Moussa Diabate316310617.2%-0.8133-7Ryan Kalkbrenner15312134.7%1.4151-11Dennis Schroder296010217.8%-1.168-11Brandon Miller37747828.6%-7.426-15Sion James29587518.0%-4.023-5Royce O’Neal17347522.0%-2.8-11-5Christian Anderson14287524.1%-2.5-30-6Naz Reid31645725.9%-9.1-16-4Grayson Allen21435320.2%-5.1-100-17Tidjane Salaun9182908.0%2.5286-3Liam McNeeley372343.5%0.3930Hannes Steinbach24019.9%-0.8-2372PJ Hall24019.9%-0.8-3722