December 3, 2025 • 8 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Sports Radio ninety two seven wfn z KB and smoke
back with you here on a busy Wednesday at Chili Wednesday.
And don't forget coming up Michael Strickland, the senior vice
president of football for the Atlantic Coast Conferences, Back, we
got the ACC title game coming up here in the
Queen City on Saturday. And at five o'clock, our boy
Roman Harper, two time Pro bowler, Super Bowl champion, SEC
(00:20):
Network analyst. But also don't forget six thirty tonight Hornets
pregame here on the flagship We've got you as the
Hornets visit the Knicks at Madison Square Garden and joining
us now the head coach of your Charlotte Hornets, Charles Lee,
back for one of his weekly chats. Coach, what's going on?
How's the Big City? How's the Big Apple?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Big Apple is cold? But it's it's been pretty good
to us so far.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Love it just is it? You're all stars. You're an
NBA coach, you coach NBA player, So you guys are
all a really big deal. But seeing con Ka Nipple
on the Late on the Jimmy Fallon Show last night,
was that bizarre? What'd you think?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Well? Unfortunately I didn't get to see it. Too late
for me. I try to say up and watch, and
like all of a sudden, Falan's like, we have a
different guest coming on, and I'm like, it's already eleven fifty.
It is late. I gotta get ready for the game.
From or all, But I was very excited for Con.
It was a good day for him, obviously being announced
the NBA's Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month and then
(01:16):
having an opportunity to go on to Fallon and the
type of person he is, he's obviously excited about it
and appreciative and grateful, but he stays humble and understands
the importance of his teammates helping him have this type
of success.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
So far early in his NBA career, he's been awesome.
I do have a question about him because a couple
of weeks ago, the Panthers had what, you know, sports
fans might call a bad loss to the Saints, and
after that, a couple of Panthers players remarked about maybe
a not so great week of practice or preparation and
focus going into that game. One was a rookie, and
you know, there was some backlash to that. Some talk
(01:52):
about the dynamics of the locker room after your lost
to Brooklyn kan Ka Nipple just said he felt like
the team didn't, you know, compete and go hard enough
in that game and was disappointed by that as a
rookie who's not even midway through his rookie year. Are
you good with that as a head coach? Do you
want those rookies stepping up and expressing those sorts of things.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, I would say it's not even a rookie thing,
a vet thing to me, It's just a player ownership
thing or player accountability. They have to ultimately take ownership
of what they want the identity of this team to
be every night. You know, as much as the coaches
and the GM, the president, the ownership group might have
this vision and what we say, and we have to
(02:32):
model those behaviors, but we need the players to obviously
carry it out, and I think they have to model
it themselves. But they also have to hold each other
accountable and whoever that is, they know our standards are
to compete at a high level, to play together at
a high level. And we showed during the weekend when
you win that back to back that we can do it,
and you know we've done it throughout the whole year,
(02:53):
but we have to be able to sustain it. And
I think just during that Brooklyn game, we did some
really good things. We put ourselves in a position to
have an eleven point lead, and then our identity started
to I think fizzle as the game went on and
like that. To CON's credit, he doesn't want to see
that going forward, and I definitely have his back when
he talks about that because our process and our identity
(03:16):
are really important to us.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
You've talked a lot about consistency this year, clearly after
a tough loss to the Knicks, so you'll see tonight
your team bounced back. You won too straight. You swept
a back to back against a couple of teams with
winning records that Toronto Raptors were scorching hot. So how
do you characterize the Brooklyn game? Is it a letdown?
Was it too many mental miscues? But like, how would
you how did you frame that game for your guys
(03:37):
after it happened?
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Yeah, I would say after in the heat of the battle,
post game, and then I went back and watched, and
our staff went back and watched, and we felt pretty
much the same. I give give Brooklyn credit for how
they played. Again, I think we did a lot of
really good things to build that eleven point lead, and
we came out with the fire that we needed to
the physicality, the competitiveness, and ball was kind of popping
(03:59):
around and moving well, and Mellow set a tone for
us and I think had eight assists in the first
half and finished with like four teams, so he definitely
was trying to play the right way. But I do
think that when you go back and watch and you
try to summise it, Orter Junior had a good night,
and there things that we could have done a little
bit better. And then to me, offensively, we just didn't
(04:20):
make the right pass, play, the right read, the selfless
play enough times offensively, and we took some tough, contested jumpers.
And we know as a defense that's what we want
to try to force other teams into because statistically is
not good, but it also does something to that other
team's spirit when you don't have the great ball movement
and stuff, and we fell into that, and I think
(04:41):
that it ended up hurting us, and it hurt a
little bit of our team spirit as we went through
that game, and so's That's kind of how I surmised
it to the group, and I think that will be
better tonight whenever you kind of challenge these guys to
get back on track.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
All right, correct me if I'm wrong here, because I
don't have the stat in front of me, but my
producer pulled it yesterday. I think this is right, but again,
would know better than I would. I think in his
last sixty games, LaMelo shooting something like forty percent from
the floor. Struggling a little bit right now to get
shots to go down. Clearly he's been back and forth
from injury. That's no doubt had some sort of impact.
But how do you get him going? How do you
help him out on that front?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, the thing I tell him to kind of focus
on those shot opportunities will will, They'll be what they are.
And I think that he does a great job of
creating shots for himself. I think his teammate's do a
really good job sometimes of hitting him for open catch
and shoot opportunities. I have to obviously make some play
calls that helped put him in a really good position,
but I also just want him to focus on what
(05:35):
are the other ways I can impact the game. Even
if my shotstop falling, there's still like the big defensive
play that he came up with versus Toronto that helped
us pull out Chicago, that helped us pull out that game,
the rebounding, some of his passing, So there are other
ways to impact the game even without scoring, and I
think that he's starting to realize that, which has helped
(05:55):
our group the last few games.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
I know Brandon's already been listed as out for to
night's game. This will be back to back missus for him.
Anything we should know there any update on his health
status right.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Now, Yeah, I would say he's, you know, trending in
a good direction every day. His symptoms are improving. It's
all kind of part of the just daily evaluation of
our guys that are coming back from injury and just
making sure they're at a place where when we put
them out there, they can play free, they can play confident,
and you know, all the Nix and Bruges want to
(06:25):
affect their availability going forward. So I think that our
performance staff and Brandon have done a really good job
of just trying to set him up for the best
possible case of games played.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
I looked out in the fourth quarter the other night,
I think you had a rotation of Antonio Reeves, Liam McNeely,
Collin sextancy on James, and I'm forgetting the fifth at
the moment. You know your roster a hell of a
lot better than I do. But how much are you
tinkering right now? Because I'll be honest, that's not a
rotation or a lineup rather that I would necessarily expect
to see in the middle of a tight ball game
in the fourth quarter.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, you know, some of it's tinkering, but some of
it is what we talked about it a little earlier
in this conversation of just trying to get our team
to recognize the importance of sticking to our identity. And
you know, when we talk about who we want to be,
the actions have to follow, and when those actions don't
follow at times, the best way for people to learn
(07:18):
sometimes is to have to come out of the game,
and when that happens, you end up with some lineups
like that. So some of it is the flow of
the game, and some of it's in the effort I
think to just try to make sure that we are
all focused on the right things and focused on trying
to be who we want to be, because when we
do do those things, we're actually a really good team.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
All right, last thing, we'll get you out of here.
You just saw the Knicks didn't go your way last week.
Clearly it was a motivating factor for the next two.
You got a chance at revenge tonight. What should it
look like?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, transition defense has to be a lot better. You know.
I think we gave up like twenty six points or
somewhere in that area. We got to be better there,
and some of that, to me was just a lack
of urgency and sometimes effort and communication. So I expect
us to be a lot better in that area. Uh.
And then in the half court, guarding Bronson and guarding
(08:08):
Towns will be big for us too. And then offensively,
like I said, I just want to see us keep
playing the right way. Like when our pace and our
ball movement are in a good spot, it puts us
in the spot to have a really high shot quality.
And then we're one of the best offensive rebounding teams
in the league. And I think that that relentlessness and
then the selflessness to be able to kick out for
some dagger threes or other opportunities has really helped our offense.
(08:30):
Love it.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Thank you coach, best to Luck tonight. We'll talk to
you soon.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Thank you, Kyle, talk to you so much.
Sports Radio ninety two seven wfn z KB and smoke
back with you here on a busy Wednesday at Chili Wednesday.
And don't forget coming up Michael Strickland, the senior vice
president of football for the Atlantic Coast Conferences, Back, we
got the ACC title game coming up here in the
Queen City on Saturday. And at five o'clock, our boy
Roman Harper, two time Pro bowler, Super Bowl champion, SEC
(00:20):
Network analyst. But also don't forget six thirty tonight Hornets
pregame here on the flagship We've got you as the
Hornets visit the Knicks at Madison Square Garden and joining
us now the head coach of your Charlotte Hornets, Charles Lee,
back for one of his weekly chats. Coach, what's going on?
How's the Big City? How's the Big Apple?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Big Apple is cold? But it's it's been pretty good
to us so far.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Love it just is it? You're all stars. You're an
NBA coach, you coach NBA player, So you guys are
all a really big deal. But seeing con Ka Nipple
on the Late on the Jimmy Fallon Show last night,
was that bizarre? What'd you think?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Well? Unfortunately I didn't get to see it. Too late
for me. I try to say up and watch, and
like all of a sudden, Falan's like, we have a
different guest coming on, and I'm like, it's already eleven fifty.
It is late. I gotta get ready for the game.
From or all, But I was very excited for Con.
It was a good day for him, obviously being announced
the NBA's Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month and then
(01:16):
having an opportunity to go on to Fallon and the
type of person he is, he's obviously excited about it
and appreciative and grateful, but he stays humble and understands
the importance of his teammates helping him have this type
of success.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
So far early in his NBA career, he's been awesome.
I do have a question about him because a couple
of weeks ago, the Panthers had what, you know, sports
fans might call a bad loss to the Saints, and
after that, a couple of Panthers players remarked about maybe
a not so great week of practice or preparation and
focus going into that game. One was a rookie, and
you know, there was some backlash to that. Some talk
(01:52):
about the dynamics of the locker room after your lost
to Brooklyn kan Ka Nipple just said he felt like
the team didn't, you know, compete and go hard enough
in that game and was disappointed by that as a
rookie who's not even midway through his rookie year. Are
you good with that as a head coach? Do you
want those rookies stepping up and expressing those sorts of things.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, I would say it's not even a rookie thing,
a vet thing to me, It's just a player ownership
thing or player accountability. They have to ultimately take ownership
of what they want the identity of this team to
be every night. You know, as much as the coaches
and the GM, the president, the ownership group might have
this vision and what we say, and we have to
(02:32):
model those behaviors, but we need the players to obviously
carry it out, and I think they have to model
it themselves. But they also have to hold each other
accountable and whoever that is, they know our standards are
to compete at a high level, to play together at
a high level. And we showed during the weekend when
you win that back to back that we can do it,
and you know we've done it throughout the whole year,
(02:53):
but we have to be able to sustain it. And
I think just during that Brooklyn game, we did some
really good things. We put ourselves in a position to
have an eleven point lead, and then our identity started
to I think fizzle as the game went on and
like that. To CON's credit, he doesn't want to see
that going forward, and I definitely have his back when
he talks about that because our process and our identity
(03:16):
are really important to us.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
You've talked a lot about consistency this year, clearly after
a tough loss to the Knicks, so you'll see tonight
your team bounced back. You won too straight. You swept
a back to back against a couple of teams with
winning records that Toronto Raptors were scorching hot. So how
do you characterize the Brooklyn game? Is it a letdown?
Was it too many mental miscues? But like, how would
you how did you frame that game for your guys
(03:37):
after it happened?
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Yeah, I would say after in the heat of the battle,
post game, and then I went back and watched, and
our staff went back and watched, and we felt pretty
much the same. I give give Brooklyn credit for how
they played. Again, I think we did a lot of
really good things to build that eleven point lead, and
we came out with the fire that we needed to
the physicality, the competitiveness, and ball was kind of popping
(03:59):
around and moving well, and Mellow set a tone for
us and I think had eight assists in the first
half and finished with like four teams, so he definitely
was trying to play the right way. But I do
think that when you go back and watch and you
try to summise it, Orter Junior had a good night,
and there things that we could have done a little
bit better. And then to me, offensively, we just didn't
(04:20):
make the right pass, play, the right read, the selfless
play enough times offensively, and we took some tough, contested jumpers.
And we know as a defense that's what we want
to try to force other teams into because statistically is
not good, but it also does something to that other
team's spirit when you don't have the great ball movement
and stuff, and we fell into that, and I think
(04:41):
that it ended up hurting us, and it hurt a
little bit of our team spirit as we went through
that game, and so's That's kind of how I surmised
it to the group, and I think that will be
better tonight whenever you kind of challenge these guys to
get back on track.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
All right, correct me if I'm wrong here, because I
don't have the stat in front of me, but my
producer pulled it yesterday. I think this is right, but again,
would know better than I would. I think in his
last sixty games, LaMelo shooting something like forty percent from
the floor. Struggling a little bit right now to get
shots to go down. Clearly he's been back and forth
from injury. That's no doubt had some sort of impact.
But how do you get him going? How do you
help him out on that front?
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, the thing I tell him to kind of focus
on those shot opportunities will will, They'll be what they are.
And I think that he does a great job of
creating shots for himself. I think his teammate's do a
really good job sometimes of hitting him for open catch
and shoot opportunities. I have to obviously make some play
calls that helped put him in a really good position,
but I also just want him to focus on what
(05:35):
are the other ways I can impact the game. Even
if my shotstop falling, there's still like the big defensive
play that he came up with versus Toronto that helped
us pull out Chicago, that helped us pull out that game,
the rebounding, some of his passing, So there are other
ways to impact the game even without scoring, and I
think that he's starting to realize that, which has helped
(05:55):
our group the last few games.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
I know Brandon's already been listed as out for to
night's game. This will be back to back missus for him.
Anything we should know there any update on his health
status right.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Now, Yeah, I would say he's, you know, trending in
a good direction every day. His symptoms are improving. It's
all kind of part of the just daily evaluation of
our guys that are coming back from injury and just
making sure they're at a place where when we put
them out there, they can play free, they can play confident,
and you know, all the Nix and Bruges want to
(06:25):
affect their availability going forward. So I think that our
performance staff and Brandon have done a really good job
of just trying to set him up for the best
possible case of games played.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
I looked out in the fourth quarter the other night,
I think you had a rotation of Antonio Reeves, Liam McNeely,
Collin sextancy on James, and I'm forgetting the fifth at
the moment. You know your roster a hell of a
lot better than I do. But how much are you
tinkering right now? Because I'll be honest, that's not a
rotation or a lineup rather that I would necessarily expect
to see in the middle of a tight ball game
in the fourth quarter.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, you know, some of it's tinkering, but some of
it is what we talked about it a little earlier
in this conversation of just trying to get our team
to recognize the importance of sticking to our identity. And
you know, when we talk about who we want to be,
the actions have to follow, and when those actions don't
follow at times, the best way for people to learn
(07:18):
sometimes is to have to come out of the game,
and when that happens, you end up with some lineups
like that. So some of it is the flow of
the game, and some of it's in the effort I
think to just try to make sure that we are
all focused on the right things and focused on trying
to be who we want to be, because when we
do do those things, we're actually a really good team.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
All right, last thing, we'll get you out of here.
You just saw the Knicks didn't go your way last week.
Clearly it was a motivating factor for the next two.
You got a chance at revenge tonight. What should it
look like?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, transition defense has to be a lot better. You know.
I think we gave up like twenty six points or
somewhere in that area. We got to be better there,
and some of that, to me was just a lack
of urgency and sometimes effort and communication. So I expect
us to be a lot better in that area. Uh.
And then in the half court, guarding Bronson and guarding
(08:08):
Towns will be big for us too. And then offensively,
like I said, I just want to see us keep
playing the right way. Like when our pace and our
ball movement are in a good spot, it puts us
in the spot to have a really high shot quality.
And then we're one of the best offensive rebounding teams
in the league. And I think that that relentlessness and
then the selflessness to be able to kick out for
some dagger threes or other opportunities has really helped our offense.
(08:30):
Love it.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Thank you coach, best to Luck tonight. We'll talk to
you soon.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Thank you, Kyle, talk to you so much.
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