PHOTO | TROY HULL

Terry Rozier glides to the basket in the Charlotte Hornets' 128-98 loss Thursday against Memphis in a preseason game at Spectrum Center. Charlotte (1-1) plays at Miami Monday.

The Hornets have upgraded in the paint but need to play better as a team.

It showed in Thursday’s 128-98 preseason loss to Memphis, where the Grizzlies outrebounded Charlotte 67-36, including a 19-12 advantage in offensive rebounds. Memphis is one of the NBA’s biggest and most physical teams, so the disparity was especially pronounced with frontcourt players Mason Plumlee, Gordon Hayward (health and safety protocols) and Kelly Oubre (ankle) out of the lineup.

“We have had this issue for the last couple of years. We addressed it in personnel – Mason will help us a lot, Gordon is a big body at 6-8, Kelly is another big body that can rebound the ball and that will help us, but we can’t rely on that every single night,” coach James Borrego said. “It’s going to take five guys every single night rebounding the ball and have an overall physical presence. We have done this before. We have been able to rebound the ball against good, big, physical teams and we just didn’t have that [against Memphis]. I know it’s preseason but … we have to find more fight there on the board.”

Memphis imposed its will from the opening tap with center Stephen Adams scoring 15 points on 5-of-7 shooting to go with 16 points. Charlotte’s smaller lineup didn’t have the physicality to respond, although Terry Rozier led all scorers with 21 points on 5-of-9 shooting from 3-point range. The Grizzlies connected on 50% of their shots, which was a problem for Charlotte last season when they went 4-19 when opponents reached that level of accuracy.

“It was self-explanatory,” Rozier said. “We got punked, it seems like we always get punked when we play them, and we just have to adjust and figure it out before the season starts. We were short-handed, but that’s part of the game. That’s just how it goes, and we have to have the next man up mentality and we have to keep positive, and we will be all right. I don’t want to talk about the it’s just preseason, because I’ve never had that attitude. It’s a long season and it hasn’t started yet.”

Said Borrego: “Well, obviously they are a big, physical team. We didn’t respond the right way. I thought we hung our heads a little bit. … We have struggled with them the last few years. We have to be more physical, that is one thing we have addressed during camp, and we needed to rebound the ball. All five guys on the board and I don’t think we responded well in that area.”

If there was a bright spot for Charlotte other than Rozier, it was the play of rookie guard James Bouknight, who scored 17 points in 27 minutes on 7-of-16 shooting. The Hornets’ first-round pick is following through on a strong summer league campaign with a relatively efficient preseason.

“When I’m locked in, I’m extremely comfortable,” he said. “Those numbers may fool you a little, but I didn’t score a lot of those points [against Memphis] until the fourth quarter, and I want to be able to be that efficient throughout the whole game and learn the hard stuff. That’s how I feel about my performance.”

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