Greatest moment in each NBA franchise’s history
Charlotte Hornets: Upset of Celtics in 1st ever Playoffs
The Charlotte Hornets were born in 1988 as an expansion franchise in the league and, as is always going to be the case with expansion franchises, it took them a bit to find success in this league. The Hornets failed to win more than 31 games in each of their first four seasons, but things changed for the better in the 1992-93 season.
The 1992 NBA Draft signaled the start of the Hornets’ rise in popularity around the league as they added center Alonzo Mourning to play alongside their top draft pick from the previous season in Larry Johnson. With Mourning, Johnson, Muggsy Bogues, Dell Curry, and Kenall Gill in tow, the Hornets made it to their first postseason as the fifth seed in the East. Unfortunately (or so it seemed), that pitted them in a first-round matchup with Kevin McHale’s Celtics.
I’m not going to pretend that these were the same Celtics as when McHale was in his prime or when Larry Bird was still in action, but this was a Celtics team with a bevy of experience in comparison to the Hornets’ zero experience in the postseason.
The young guns in Johnson and Mourning came out and were completely unafraid of the moment and dominated the Celtics. Johnson averaged 22 points, 9.3 rebounds and 4.3 assists while Mourning put up a ridiculous line of 23.8 pints 10 rebounds, one assist and four blocks per game in the four-game victory in the best-of-five series.
Charlotte went on to get trounced by the Knicks in the next round, but that doesn’t take away the shine from a team making the postseason just five years after its inception and then knocking off a legendary team like the Celtics in their first ever playoff series. That’s something that Hornets fans and fans of that era will never forget.
Next: Chicago Bulls