Hornets Beat Wizards 110-103 Behind Brandon Miller's Career Night

The Charlotte Hornets moved to 3-1 with a 110-103 win over the Washington Wizards on Monday night in Charlotte, and the story of the game was Brandon Miller. The Hornets' forward put together an eye-popping career-high scoring performance, and Charlotte needed every bit of it against a Washington team that came in averaging 118 points per game.

That offensive average did not hold. The Wizards' offense ground to a halt for long stretches, and 103 points was well short of the pace they had been playing at. Washington's Trae Young did show some early chemistry with Anthony Davis on a lob-dunk connection, but the highlights were too infrequent to keep pace with Miller and the Hornets.

How our premium pick did: We laid Charlotte -1.5, and the Hornets covered comfortably, winning by seven. That one cashes.

The Over 228.5 did not. The two teams combined for 213 points, 15.5 under the number, as the game settled into exactly the kind of lower-possession, defense-leaning contest Charlotte has been winning early in the season. Our read on the spread was right; our read on the total was wrong.

The takeaway: Charlotte's early profile — a low-scoring team that grinds out close wins — is holding up, and it argues for caution when pricing Hornets totals near the market's mid-220s. Washington's 118-point pace looks more like a small-sample artifact than a durable identity. Expect the market to start adjusting both numbers, and expect us to be slower to chase Washington overs going forward.