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Naz Reid on Charles Lee after the Detroit benching: ‘Me and Coach, we’ve been fine since then,’ as the Hornets end their skid
Naz Reid said he and Charles Lee have moved past his October 28 benching after 25 points and 13 rebounds in the Hornets’ 124-112 win over Cleveland, while Lee praised Reid’s film work, Ryan Kalkbrenner’s first start and gave a Brandon Miller update.
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Twelve days after Charles Lee sat Naz Reid for the entire second half in Detroit, the two of them spent Monday night in Charlotte talking about the same subject from opposite ends of a much better evening. Reid had 25 points and a season-high 13 rebounds, the Hornets beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 124-112 to end a six-game losing streak, and Reid said the benching was behind them.
“I think any sport, when you’re super competitive, that type of stuff happens,” Reid said. “Me being the person I am, just kind of take accountability and just be able to direct traffic for the team and understand, look, stuff like that happens, but it’s how you respond. You gotta be able to take those moments and be accountable so we can move on to the next situation.”
“So I think me and Coach, we’ve been fine since then,” he said. “I think you see us talk a lot on the floor, like we are able to communicate like nothing happened. It is what it is back at that moment. But I’m not really too worried about that.”
From the bench in Detroit to the center of the win
The benching came on October 28, when Lee kept Reid out of the second half of a 97-89 loss to the Pistons because, in Lee’s words, he “didn’t meet our standards” in the first half. Charlotte was 3-1 before that night. It did not win again until Monday, losing at Detroit and then at Washington, at home to Philadelphia and Detroit, at Brooklyn and at home to Boston, a 119-80 defeat on Friday.
Reid, who arrived from Minnesota in the offseason trade that sent LaMelo Ball to the Timberwolves, kept starting through the skid. In the six games since the benching he is averaging 17.7 points and 8.3 rebounds, including 28 at Brooklyn and Monday’s 25 on 10-of-26 shooting with four threes, four assists and two steals in 32 minutes. Charlotte was plus-16 with him on the floor.
Lee did not frame Monday as a reconciliation story. He talked about Reid as a player still learning a new system. “It’s a lot for anybody,” Lee said. “Not that we’re reinventing the wheel here, but I think just how the daily process goes from where he just came from is different. Terminology, play style, a little bit different where he’s going to get his shots.”
“Because he cares so much, there’s obviously a lot of film work that goes into it with himself and with Coach Buck,” Lee said. “I see his communication level growing with his teammates, building those relationships, and just trusting everything. It’s really cool to see him becoming an elite two-way player and giving it to us on both ends of the floor.”
Lee also said Reid has become more patient in the half court. “I think he’s just finally kind of slowing down in the half court and realizing, hey, if I get a chase pick-and-roll here, I can go play a clear corner with a small and have a potential post-up,” he said. “He’s just finding another level of comfort with how we play early in the clock, and then the middle and end of the clock as well.”
Reid said the film sessions have helped him figure out “where I belong on the floor.” “You hear some of the greats talk about film and being able to watch the mistakes and the good things,” he said. “So you can go out on the floor and either capitalize on what you’ve done before or make up for it if you haven’t done so. I think the film is huge.”
Kalkbrenner’s first start, and the shots finally fall
Charlotte had Brandon Miller, Kon Knueppel, Moussa Diabaté, Grant Williams and Dennis Schröder out, so Ryan Kalkbrenner made his first start of the season at center next to Reid. He had 8 points, 15 rebounds, 10 of them offensive, 3 blocks and a steal in 35 minutes, all season highs for minutes and rebounds, and finished plus-20. His previous best this season was seven rebounds.
“You can see the bench, they go crazy,” Lee said of Kalkbrenner’s floor dives. “That type of competitive spirit becomes contagious throughout your whole group. Whenever someone gives their body up for the team, I think it shows just that extra commitment to try and give anything to impact winning.”
Kalkbrenner’s work on the glass helped Charlotte to a 49-32 rebounding edge and 17 offensive rebounds to Cleveland’s four. The Hornets also made 23 of 46 threes. Grayson Allen scored 27 with six threes, Tidjane Salaün added 14 off the bench and Sion James had 11. Charlotte led by as many as 33 before Cleveland’s reserves cut it to eight late.
Lee said the result had more to do with the defense than the shooting. “We are far from a finished product. We’re just kind of scratching the surface,” he said. “I’m glad that some shots went down, but I even love the defensive intensity, probably even more. They’ve been committed to both sides of the ball, and unfortunately we haven’t had some shot-making luck go our way. And tonight it kind of swung the other way.”
Miller ‘not a long-term thing’
Lee also gave an update on Miller, who left Friday’s loss to Boston with right groin soreness and has not played since. “I don’t think this is going to be something that takes a while,” Lee said. “He’s already shown some progress since Friday night’s game that it happened. I don’t want to say day-to-day, probably I’m going too far, but I don’t think it’s going to be a long-term thing. We’ll keep evaluating him, and every day he’s feeling a little bit better.”
The Hornets are 4-7 and have two days off before they visit the Phoenix Suns on Thursday, November 12, at 9 p.m. ET (4 a.m. Friday Cairo time). Cleveland, now 5-6, visits the New York Knicks on Wednesday.
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